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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27745432">found my heart and broke it here</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamuko/pseuds/nsfwena'>nsfwena (enamuko)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(the angst is quickly resolved don't worry), (the smut is in the second to last chapter if you're curious), (unrelated to the smut), Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Face-Sitting, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Post-War, Sylvain Felix and Lysithea just have a lot of fun, Threesome - F/M/M, Verdant Wind route, babies ever after</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:00:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>29,932</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27745432</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamuko/pseuds/nsfwena</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There were a lot of rumours floating around Fodlan about what happened to Felix Hugo Fraldarius after the end of the war— some outlandish, some unflattering, most just complete hearsay.</p><p>Most people thought he was dead. Sylvain refused to believe it. So when he goes looking for him and finds him living the idyllic married life with Lysithea in the middle of nowhere, he's both pleasantly surprised and just... Plain surprised.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Background Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Lysithea von Ordelia, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier/Lysithea von Ordelia, Mentioned Dorothea Arnault/Ingrid Brandl Galatea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Apologies for the Ed Sheeran lyrics for the titles. Song lyrics are the only way I can avoid the dumbest titles in the universe.</p><p>A gift for my lovely girlfriend that was FAR too long in the making because I wrote it once, hated it, and then restarted again. I don't even want to call this a second draft because the only thing I retained from the original is the prologue. Everything else was completely written from scratch with a much clearer outline so I didn't end up with over 60k of rambling nonsense like the first time adjkhawkdjwa</p><p>If you're looking for the smut, it's the second to last chapter!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There were a lot of rumours floating around Fodlan about what happened to Felix Hugo Fraldarius after the end of the war— some outlandish, some unflattering, most just complete hearsay.</p><p>The facts were:</p><p>Firstly: After the war, Faerghus was… A mess. With Dimitri dead and the royal line officially brought to an end, and the Professor— no, the new <em>ruler of United Fodlan</em>— trying to figure out how to rule the mess that was left behind not only by him but also Edelgard <em>and</em> Claude, most of the surviving nobles of Faerghus were left scrambling just to maintain basic order.</p><p>Secondly: Somewhere during that entire mess, Felix just… Up and disappeared. He left a letter for his uncle, the only other surviving member of the Fraldarius family, saying that he was renouncing his title. He even left the Aegis Shield behind. He didn’t say where he was going or what he was planning to do. There was a pretty clear sense that he didn’t <em>want </em>anyone to go after him, or be able to find him.</p><p>Finally: Rumours of a rogue sellsword who fought without care or restraint started cropping up all across Fodlan right around the same time.</p><p>Then, abruptly, all of those rumours stopped.</p><p>People naturally came to certain… <em>Conclusions.</em> They all heard the stories of the rogue sellsword throwing himself recklessly into battle after battle with no regard for his own life. He’d left his <em>shield</em> behind. It was easy to assume he was just… Gone.</p><p>Sylvain, though, refused to believe it.</p><p>They had made a promise, after all.</p><p>From the moment Felix had disappeared, Sylvain had searched. Goddess knew he had searched, leaving for weeks at a time to chase down even the most tenuous lead. He absolutely refused to believe that he was just <em>gone</em>, not even when the rumors started to dry up, leaving him with no idea how or where to continue his search.</p><p>But life, unfortunately, had to go on.</p><p>Sylvain had abruptly inherited the Gautier territory from his father— both because the political climate was <em>unfavorable</em> for the sort of man the former Margrave was, and because the war had taken a toll on his health. He passed not long after, leaving Sylvain with an entire territory worth of people— and <em>problems</em>— on his hands.</p><p>He had put finding Felix to the side, something for him to return to as soon as things were <em>stable</em>.</p><p>Unfortunately, this was Fodlan, and stability… Well.</p><p>It had never been her strong suit.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure you’re going to be alright on your own?”</p><p>“If you ask me that one more time, I’m going to slap you.”</p><p>Sylvain laughed, even though he knew it wasn’t a joke. That was what made it funny, he supposed.</p><p>The laugh didn’t sound very genuine, anyway. He had too much on his mind.</p><p>“Mercedes will be here tomorrow morning,” Ingrid reminded him for the thousandth time, all of the patience long since gone out of her voice; now it sounded more like she was lecturing him. “And Bernadetta will be along to join her for your birthday, which you had <em>better</em> be home for.”</p><p>“I will,” he said, even though they both knew he couldn’t promise anything.</p><p>He’d put it off for too long already— he had no intentions of coming home until he had <em>answers</em>.</p><p>“You just take care of yourself while I’m gone, alright?”</p><p>Sylvain’s hand came to rest automatically on Ingrid’s stomach. She folded her own hand on top of his. Their matching wedding bands gleamed in the low light of the rising sun filtering in through the massive windows of the front hall, resting atop the soft curve of Ingrid’s stomach.</p><p>She was only a few months along, according to the doctors— and Mercedes, who Sylvain trusted even more, although she wasn’t technically a doctor herself.</p><p>All of their friends had joked that they were surprised it hadn’t happened sooner, considering they had been married for almost two years now.</p><p>Well— <em>almost</em> all of their friends.</p><p>“I’m the one who should be saying that to <em>you</em>,” Ingrid said, her other hand coming to join the first so she could clasp his hand between both of hers. “Don’t do anything stupid, especially since I won’t be there to get you out of trouble.”</p><p>“I’ll be on my best behaviour. Cross my heart, swear to the Goddess.”</p><p>Sylvain knew Ingrid wanted to come with him. Felix was her friend, too. With Dimitri gone, it was just the three of them— and she always hated when Sylvain went off on his own.</p><p>But someone needed to be there in case anything happened in either of their territories, and Ingrid—</p><p>She wanted to find Felix, to know that he was <em>alive</em> and <em>safe</em>, and probably to smack him and ask why he had just disappeared like that without telling anyone.</p><p>But she didn’t <em>need</em> to find Felix, the way Sylvain did.</p><p>They didn’t talk about it. Sylvain knew he was mostly to blame for that.</p><p>Ingrid sighed and brought his hand up to her mouth so she could kiss his knuckles.</p><p>“Just— don’t get bucked off your horse into a ditch or something, alright?”</p><p>When Ingrid finally decided to let go of his hand, he took hold of both of her shoulders and leaned in to kiss her, saying, “I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?”</p><p>And then he left.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t that he just suddenly had <em>time</em> to go running all across Fodlan looking for Felix. Things were still hectic and complicated everywhere. Negotiations with the Sreng tribes whose territory had originally been seized during King Lambert’s campaign were progressing, albeit slowly. Galatea territory was recovering from another of its famous famines. All over Faerghus— no, all over <em>Fodlan</em>, bandits and petty crime showed that the continent still hadn’t recovered from the wounds the war had left, although it was healing slowly, bit by bit.</p><p>No— it was that he had a <em>lead</em>.</p><p>During his frantic searching, most of his information had come in the form of secondhand accounts, people talking about Felix and his daring deeds as a mercenary. He had tried his hardest to trace those tales to their sources and figure out where Felix was going, but it had been hard when half the time he couldn’t even tell if the stories were <em>real</em>.</p><p>So, his strongest sources had been his old friends and classmates— people he could trust to tell him the truth, or at least what they <em>thought</em> was the truth, if they heard it from other people.</p><p>It was Raphael who had given him the lead, this time. In the letter he sent, Raphael had explained that Leonie had stopped by his family’s inn with her mercenary group, and had told him a story she thought Sylvain would be interested in; when their group had been passing through a small crossing village in the southern part of the Alliance, she had asked around about Felix. She hadn’t expected to turn up much, and so was surprised when the tavern keeper said that a trader passing through told him about an isolated village deep in the forest that she had been plying her wares in. There, she had met a retired mercenary who had given up his life of violence after finding love there, which she had thought was a cute enough story to share.</p><p>It didn’t sound much like Felix. It didn’t sound much like <em>anything</em>, except a quaint story that sounded strange to come up in casual conversation, or maybe something out of one of the novels Ashe always liked to read. But the geography matched, more or less— at the very least, the village the woman had been talking about was in the same general direction as the path Felix had been taking before he had just up and vanished.</p><p>It wasn’t much to go on. But it was as good a place to start as any.</p><p>The village was a long ways off, being just as out in the middle of nowhere as the merchant Leonie had spoken to said, but that didn’t deter Sylvain at all. </p><p>If he could find Felix, or even any sort of clue as to where he might have gone or what might have happened to him— that would make it all worth it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Freywallow was a small village— one with, in Felix’s opinion, an absolutely ridiculous name. But then, when only about a hundred people lived there and you were so deep in the middle of nowhere that no one even <em>knew</em> the village’s name, it didn’t really matter.</p><p>The sun was only just starting to rise when Felix woke up— typical for him. It wasn’t just his internal clock that woke him up, however; the sound of a fussing baby woke him up quickly.</p><p>He lifted his head to look over at the crib next to their bed. A beautiful one year old baby girl looked back at him, her stringy dark blue hair standing up at weird angles and her face pinched and splotchy— a sure sign that her fussing was going to quickly turn to crying if she didn’t get attention <em>right now</em>.</p><p>Felix sighed as he sat up, rotating his neck and shoulders to work out the kinks from a night’s sleep. He went to get out of bed— but paused long enough to look at the sleeping form next to him.</p><p>Lysithea was lying next to him, dead to the world, wrapped up almost entirely in both of their blankets even though it was very nearly summer <em>and</em> he was pretty sure they had been <em>sharing</em> those blankets when they had both gone to sleep.</p><p>Normally he would have woken her up, maybe even told her off for being so lazy when they had a busy day ahead of them, but the night before the baby had been equally fussy. He had woken up when Lysithea had gotten up to feed her, and again when she had gotten back to bed, and even though he hadn’t gotten up to check the time he was sure that it wasn’t a <em>short</em> feeding.</p><p>Felix decided he could let her sleep in— just this once.</p><p>He leaned in to press a kiss to the back of her head, marvelling for just a moment at the two or so inches of auburn hair that had started growing in and pushing the white out at the roots, before the baby started fussing even more loudly at him.</p><p>“Alright, alright,” he said in hushed tones as he climbed out of bed. “I’m coming. Relax.”</p><p>Without even bothering to get dressed other than throwing a dressing gown and some slippers on, Felix scooped the baby out of her crib and carried her down the stairs to the kitchen.</p><p>“Good morning, Evangeline.” If anyone ever called any noise Felix made ‘cooing’ he probably would have punched them at the <em>very</em> least, but that was just the sort of sound you <em>made</em> when you were talking to babies. “Let’s get you something to eat while mommy sleeps in.”</p><p>He descended into the front hall and carried Evangeline into the kitchen, setting her down in the high chair that one of the village mothers— the sort of woman who permanently had one child on her hip and another clinging to her skirts with at least a few more running around somewhere behind her— had given them because her youngest had gotten too big for it.</p><p>Felix lit the stove and poured milk and oats into a saucepan to cook Evangeline’s morning porridge, while he ate some bread smeared with butter and a few cut up bits of cheese he’d almost forgotten about for his own breakfast. On the other side of the stove he had a kettle heating for his morning tea, the fragrant Almyran pine needles giving the kitchen a pleasant, earthy smell.</p><p>By the time he heard Lysithea moving around upstairs, he was sitting at the table with a hot cup of tea; by the time she made her way downstairs, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and with her dressing gown hanging open, he was ignoring that tea in favour of trying to feed Evangeline her porridge while she endeavoured to get it all over herself instead of in her mouth.</p><p>“Good morning.” That was what Felix was <em>guessing</em> Lysithea said; it was hard to tell when she <em>yawned</em> it instead of speaking properly.</p><p>“About time you got up,” he said instead of returning her morning greeting, which made Lysithea give him a flat look as she rounded the table to pour herself a cup of tea and help herself to a scone slathered in honey and peach jam.</p><p>Once upon a time he might have asked her what the point of having breakfast was if she was just going to eat dessert instead of real food, but after being married for over two years and having known Lysithea since they were teenagers, he knew it was a waste of time trying to figure out her obsession with sweets.</p><p>Evangeline babbled happily, further thwarting his efforts to feed her and resulting in an entire spoonful of porridge ending up being dumped right on her, when she saw her mother coming over; Lysithea cooed nonsense at her over his shoulder, leaning over him to set her cup of tea down on the table.</p><p>After getting carried away with baby entertainment for a few moments, Lysithea put her hands on his shoulders and leaned in to press a kiss to his temple, then wrapped her arms more fully around him as she nuzzled into his hair.</p><p>“You could have woken me up,” she said, instead of <em>thank you for getting the baby up so I could sleep in for once</em>.</p><p>“You needed the sleep. We were fine,” Felix replied, instead of <em>you’re welcome, it’s the least I could do for my beloved wife and mother of my child</em>.</p><p>And life continued on as normal.</p><p> </p><p>Felix had never envisioned himself settling down; when he had left Faerghus in the dead of night, taking his horse and riding off with the intention of getting as far away from the former Kingdom as quickly as possible, he had figured he would spend the rest of his life wandering Fodlan— and perhaps beyond— with nothing more than his sword and the clothes on his back, making his living as a wandering mercenary.</p><p>If someone had told him then that he would be tossing grain to a trio of lazy hens while the smell of baking bread drifted out a nearby window along with the comforting sound of his wife having a totally normal conversation with their infant daughter, he would have called them insane, and yet. Here he was.</p><p>He left the fat hens to peck at their scattered food and went in through the back door of the little brick building that sat on the front of their property, their house just a short walk down the path.</p><p>The building was a bakery— technically. In practice, the village was so small that it really didn’t have much need for a bakery; before Lysithea had moved in, everyone had just made their own baked goods, and things continued much the same now. People <em>liked</em> Lysithea’s sweets enough to buy them for special occasions, but it wasn’t nearly enough to support a real business.</p><p>That wasn’t why Lysithea did it, though; she had plenty of money that she had set aside before abdicating her family’s territory and taking her parents far away from their old home. She just liked to bake, and it gave her something to do. Lysithea wasn’t the sort who liked to stay idle just because she <em>could</em>.</p><p>They had a lot in common in that sense. Which was probably why they were married in the first place.</p><p>Felix dropped the feed bag by the back door, making sure to wipe his boots on the doormat so Lysithea didn’t have any reason to snip at him about messing up her clean floors, even though they were sprinkled liberally with flour wherever she had gone and with mashed bananas about as far as Evangeline was able to throw them.</p><p>She had a good arm for a one-year-old, Felix would give her that.</p><p>Felix came up behind Lysithea and pressed a kiss to her cheek before reaching around her to take the tray heaping with fresh loaves of bread sitting on the counter next to her so he could take it to the front of the shop and set it out.</p><p>“Make sure you open the windows so we can lure customers in with the smell!” Lysithea reminded him as though he hadn’t been working at the bakery alongside her since even before they had gotten married, and as if they didn’t live at the end of a dead-end road where no one was going to smell their baked goods anyway, unless they had already come looking for them.</p><p>He just rolled his eyes and did as he was told.</p><p>As he set the bread out in the little cubbies designed for them, he heard Lysithea’s voice drift through the door he’d left ajar to fill the bakery even more with the smell of freshly baked bread— not baby talking to Evangeline anymore, but humming something that wasn’t quite a tune he could recognize and probably wasn’t meant to be.</p><p>Lysithea liked to hum while she baked or cleaned or did anything else that let her mind wander, and sometimes she would even start to sing if she really got into it— or when she needed to calm Evangeline down. She would never be an opera star like Dorothea, but he liked the sound of her voice anyway, even when she was off-key or just singing complete nonsense to try and get their daughter to sleep.</p><p>It was another one of those small things he never would have expected, a few years ago. But since he never would have even expected to be married with a child, that wasn’t too surprising.</p><p>Felix had let himself zone out listening to Lysithea’s humming when the bell over the front door chimed, announcing the arrival of a customer; considering the sun was only just barely up, it was early enough to surprise him, but he turned around ready to give the usual greeting speech—</p><p>And froze when it wasn’t a customer standing there, but <em>Sylvain</em>.</p><p>For a second, Sylvain was too busy looking around to even notice that he was there, like he was somehow <em>enthralled</em> by the old worn out brick building that Felix was pretty sure used to be a cobbler before Lysithea had moved in; then, just as Felix was considering whether he had time to bolt, their eyes met.</p><p>“<em>Sothis</em>.” Sylvain <em>breathed</em> the word like he was in awe, the way Ignatz had always spoken when he saw a particularly beautiful piece of architecture, or the way Claude talked about Byleth when he thought no one was listening. “It’s— Felix, you’re really here. I never thought… Goddess, have you been here this whole time…?”</p><p>Felix’s jaw flapped uselessly. His brain scrambled for something to say, but it was like trying to think through a cloud of cotton.</p><p>“I looked <em>everywhere</em> for you,” Sylvain continued, obviously not bothered by his lack of a response, or the fact that every muscle in his body felt so tense you probably could have bounced a coin off of him. “I was starting to think you were <em>dead</em>. When I heard you were living out here I half expected to turn up and just find another crazy story of something you had done, but… You’re <em>here</em>.”</p><p>Felix had no idea when he had moved out from behind the counter, but he must have done it at some point, because the next thing he knew Sylvain was wrapping him up in a hug so tight he swore he heard some of his ribs creak, laughing like he was some kind of madman. He didn’t even realize that Sylvain had <em>lifted him off his feet</em> until he was being set back down on them and released, Sylvain’s hands still firmly on his shoulders— holding onto him like he was worried he was going to run away if he took his hands off him for even a second.</p><p>Felix couldn’t even make fun of him for it, because at the moment, he felt like he <em>would</em>.</p><p>“Felix?” Sylvain tilted his head, eyebrows knitting together and a frown appearing on his face. “Are you okay?”</p><p>He didn’t think he could answer that question seriously without sounding like an insane person. Thankfully he didn’t have to, because at that exact moment, Lysithea appeared in the doorway behind them asking, “Felix, what’s going on out here? I heard a commotion— <em>Sylvain</em>?!”</p><p>“Lysithea!”</p><p>Sylvain’s eyes went so wide that Felix might have made fun of him for it, or gotten offended, if he could summon the will to be anything other than confused and anxious about Sylvain’s sudden appearance.</p><p>Lysithea was looking at him now, though, which meant standing there like a deer who had just spotted a hunter was only going to cause problems— so he took a few firm steps back from Sylvain to regain his <em>personal space</em>, crossing his arms before asking, “Sylvain, what are you <em>doing here</em>?”</p><p>“What am I— Felix, I just told you, I’m here to <em>find you</em>. I’ve been searching all across Fodlan for you! You just— disappeared and didn’t tell anyone where you were going, and all of a sudden all of those crazy stories about a lone swordsman started popping up… I’ve been trying to figure out where you went for <em>years</em>.”</p><p>Sylvain sounded increasingly hysterical the more he went on, not to mention sounding increasingly <em>insulted</em> that Felix had even <em>asked</em> him a question like that, but none of that mattered. Because as soon as Felix heard that Sylvain was there to <em>find him</em>, that he’d been <em>looking</em> for him, it was like all of the blood in his veins had turned to ice and he suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe.</p><p>He needed to get out of there, he decided. <em>Immediately</em>. Sylvain was standing between him and the front door and even though he knew he could take him, his brain was operating on <em>flight</em> rather than <em>fight</em> for once— so he instead chose the path of least resistance and turned on his heel, heading straight for the doorway Lysithea was standing in and practically shoving her out of the way to get through it in his haste.</p><p>“Felix?! Where are you going?!”</p><p>Lysithea yelled after him, but Felix didn’t stop— and the last thing he heard before the back door slammed behind him was, “...Was it something I said?”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, Felix. Are you done with your little temper tantrum?”</p><p>The satisfying feeling of a log splitting in two wasn’t enough to completely distract him from Lysithea’s stern tone— but he did his best to ignore her anyway, focusing on the task of clearing the split wood from the chopping block and setting up another log.</p><p>“Don’t ignore me when I’m talking to you,” she said, a particularly nasty edge creeping into her voice, and Felix sighed as he straightened up and dropped the axe next to him— he didn’t want to fight with her.</p><p>He turned to face her and was unsurprised to see her standing there with her arms crossed, glaring at him like a disapproving mother and tapping her foot like he was taking up her <em>valuable time</em> by making her lecture him.</p><p>So much for not wanting to fight with her— seeing her like that instantly made him go on the defensive and he crossed his arms and frowned right back. “What?”</p><p>“What was that all about back there?” she asked, going from arms crossed to hands on her hips, the next stage of her lecture stance. “Your best friend turns up on your doorstep and you run off like he charged through the door and pointed a lance at you. And I find you out here sulking. What's <em>wrong</em> with you?"</p><p>"Nothing is <em>wrong</em> with me." He shook his head and looked off into the distance to avoid looking Lysithea directly in the eye; he'd gotten better about that after being married to her for a while, but when emotions ran high he tended towards his old familiar comforts. "I didn't <em>ask</em> Sylvain to come here. If I had wanted anyone to know where I was going, I wouldn't have left in the middle of the night without telling anyone in the first place. And I certainly wouldn't have become a <em>wandering mercenary</em> or settled down out here in the <em>middle of nowhere</em>."</p><p>He had left home for a reason— the Kingdom, or what was left of it now that Fodlan had been unified following the war, had nothing for him any longer. The Boar Prince was dead, just one more casualty among hundreds on Gronder Field— Hilda had seen it happen and reported back on the grisly details. The Blaiddyd line was ended, and with it, the 'born purpose' of the Fraldarius family. And good riddance.</p><p>His uncle would manage their territory better than <em>he</em> ever could, at least until he found some other poor sap to dump the job on. And even if someone begged him— even if <em>Sylvain</em> begged him— he would never go back.</p><p>"Ugh. You're being <em>completely </em>ridiculous."</p><p>"I'm not being— hey!"</p><p>Felix planted his feet in the ground as Lysithea grabbed his wrist and started <em>pulling</em> him in the direction of the bakery, like he was some sort of petulant child being dragged around by an exasperated mother.</p><p>"You're going back in there and you’re going to <em>apologize</em> for running away like some kind of crazy person!”</p><p>If she hadn’t been literally trying to <em>drag him</em> back against his will, he would have found the way Lysithea struggled to pull him almost cute— instead it was just annoying, even agitating.</p><p>“Why should I? Like I said, I never <em>asked</em> him to come here— and whatever he’s come here <em>for</em>, I have no interest in it.”</p><p>“He came here to <em>see</em> you!”</p><p>“So <em>he</em> says—”</p><p>“<em>Ugh</em>, would you <em>listen</em> to yourself! Living out here in the woods has clearly made you some sort of paranoid hermit.” Lysithea released his wrist so she could turn on her heel and walk back towards the bakery. “<em>I </em>am going to go give a proper welcome to <em>our</em> old friend, and if you would like to stop being such a <em>child</em> and join us, you’re more than welcome.”</p><p>Felix knew she was just trying to get a rise out of him so he would do exactly what she wanted. She would taunt him, he would get defensive about it, she would challenge him to disprove what she was saying, and he would end up doing exactly what she was complaining about him <em>not</em> doing. He had been through it enough times to know the pattern when he saw it.</p><p>Well, he wasn’t going to give in this time. If Lysithea thought he could be stubborn when it came to wanting him to taste test her latest cake recipe, or letting her style his hair, she had no idea how stubborn he could <em>get</em>.</p><p>...But even though he knew <em>Lysithea</em> was just trying to manipulate him, <em>Sylvain</em> wasn’t going to know that was the reason he was staying away. Which meant <em>he</em> was going to think he had just run away because he was <em>scared</em> of him, or something equally ridiculous.</p><p>…<em>Damn it all</em>.</p><p>He waited until he heard the back door slam behind Lysithea, not wanting it to look like he was chasing after her because he thought she was <em>right</em>. He wanted it to be clear that he was going back on his own terms, because he’d had enough time to properly assess the situation and figure out what he was going to do and say, and <em>not</em> because Lysithea— of all people!— had said he was acting like a <em>child</em>. </p><p>After he heard the door close, he gave it a few more minutes, going back to chopping wood until he got through the small pile he made for himself— and only then did he make his way back to the bakery, casually wiping sweat from his brow with an old rag, looking for all the world like he was just trekking back to get a cool drink after some hard work and <em>not</em> like he was coming crawling back with his tail between his legs.</p><p>And if Lysithea said otherwise, at least <em>he </em>knew better. That was what <em>really</em> mattered.</p><p>He strode right into the kitchen, absolutely sure of what he was going to do— he was going to <em>demand</em> to know why Sylvain was really there. He knew better than to believe for a <em>second</em> that Sylvain had tracked him down out in the middle of nowhere and had come all this way just for a friendly chat.</p><p>Lysithea might have been taken in by that story, but only because she didn’t know— how things had <em>ended</em> between them before he’d left.</p><p>(If Felix had any say in the matter, she wasn’t <em>going</em> to know. Ever.)</p><p>He was already gearing up to launch into his interrogation when the sight of Sylvain sitting at <em>his</em> kitchen table, drinking <em>his</em> tea, bouncing <em>his </em>daughter on his knee brought him to an immediate halt.</p><p>And then Sylvain had the <em>audacity</em> to look over at him, <em>smile</em>, and say, “Hey, Felix. Sorry if I scared you off earlier. It’s been so long I’d forgotten about your whole… <em>Thing</em> with physical contact.”</p><p>It was bullshit and they both knew it; not only could Felix tell from the way Sylvain’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, which were unreadable, but Sylvain had known Felix since literally before he was able to <em>walk</em>. He would have never just <em>forgotten</em> something like that, just because they had been apart for a few years… And he would also have never <em>forgotten </em>that even when he was at his worst, during the years after the Tragedy when he could barely stand to be around other people, never mind being <em>touched</em> by them, <em>he</em> had always been the exception.</p><p>Sylvain was just offering him an easy out, a convenient excuse he could use for why he acted the way he did— he must have figured out that Lysithea had no idea what had happened when Felix left.</p><p><em>DAMN IT ALL</em>.</p><p>He had walked in there with the perfect plan— or at least <em>a</em> plan— and not only had that instantly been derailed, but now he had no choice but to swallow his pride and go along with the ‘help’ Sylvain was offering him before Lysithea got suspicious.</p><p>He didn’t have to be happy about it, though— so he pulled a chair out on the opposite side of the table from Sylvain, sat down with his arms crossed, and asked, “What are you <em>really</em> doing here, Sylvain?”</p><p><em>“Felix</em>!” Lysithea hissed at him as she swatted his shoulder, but he ignored her completely, staring Sylvain down as he watched him for any small change in his expression or body language—</p><p>Something which would have probably been much more intimidating if Evangeline wasn’t sitting in Sylvain’s lap babbling happy nonsense and drooling all over him while she tried to shove her entire fist into her mouth.</p><p>He didn’t have to wait long, though— Sylvain didn’t even bother trying to keep up the mask, but instead of looking like he’d been caught out or something, he just looked… <em>Sad</em>. His eyebrows furrowed and his shoulders slumped, at least.</p><p>“Come on, Felix, do you really think I would lie to you about something like that?” He shook his head. “I just came to make sure you were… You know, <em>okay</em>.”</p><p>Felix stared even harder at Sylvain, trying to detect any hint that he was lying— any hint of that <em>mask</em> Sylvain had worn for so long that had always pissed him off. Felix was good at reading people. He was especially good at reading Sylvain, since they’d known each other for so long, even though he had been almost <em>hilariously</em> blind to how much of his whole ‘womanizing’ thing had just been another one of his acts— he’d had other things on his mind, and hadn’t figured it out until the war broke out and they met up again at Garreg Mach.</p><p>It surprised him, then, to see that as far as he could tell, Sylvain was being completely sincere.</p><p>It surprised him even more when Sylvain went to pass Evangeline, who had started babbling for ‘mama’, to Lysithea, and he spotted the wedding ring on Sylvain’s finger.</p><p>A lot of emotions shot through Felix all at once— and he beat them all off with a stick as fast as they could come. Instinctively he started to play with his own wedding ring.</p><p>“...you got married, huh?”</p><p>It shouldn’t have surprised him. It had been literal <em>years</em> since he had last seen Sylvain; a lot of things had probably happened in that time. A lot of things had certainly happened for <em>him</em>; he had wandered all across Fodlan, gotten married <em>himself</em>, and had a baby.</p><p>That didn’t stop the sick, almost sinking feeling in his stomach from happening, though.</p><p>“Hm?” Sylvain tilted his head at Felix, like he hadn’t quite heard what he’d said, then looked down at his hand. “Oh! Yeah. Two years ago, actually. We would have invited you, but… Again, we had no idea where you were or even if you were alive.”</p><p>‘We’ at least implied that it was someone Felix knew; that at least comforted him a <em>little</em>. Despite his acts of rebellion— like flirting with every woman who happened to cross his line of sight— he’d always been too quick to give in to his father’s whims. His first instinct had been to assume that Sylvain had gotten married to some noblewoman his father had chosen for him.</p><p>It was good to know that Sylvain was smarter than Felix gave him credit for. It was <em>almost</em> enough to make him gloss over the none too subtle dig at his sudden disappearance— something he definitely had Words about that were interrupted by Lysithea asking,</p><p>“So who’s the lucky woman?”</p><p>Lysithea was holding Evangeline in her lap but was staring at Sylvain so intently that she didn’t even seem to notice that she was happily chewing on her hair.</p><p>Felix was… <em>Curious</em> as well, figuring there was really only a handful of women it could be. But Lysithea was staring at Sylvain the way Raphael or Ingrid would stare at a juicy steak.</p><p>He supposed when you lived out in the woods long enough…</p><p>“Ingrid.”</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Actually… Not the answer he’d been expecting. He’d been expecting Mercedes, in all honesty.</p><p>Ingrid was… The most <em>logical </em>choice. They had both known her just as long as they had known each other. He just… Hadn’t been expecting it because during their school days and later during the war, she had seemed… Well.</p><p>“What about Dorothea?”</p><p>Lysithea shot him a Look for that, but he didn’t care.</p><p>“It’s… Complicated.” Sylvain laughed and rubbed the back of his head, then seamlessly moved on. It was almost scary. Felix might not have let him, except that he didn’t actually care that much to hear the sordid details of whatever had happened between Ingrid and her sort-of-girlfriend. “Ingrid’s expecting, actually! We haven’t told anyone yet because it’s pretty early on, but… Yeah.”</p><p>Sylvain shrugged like it was no big deal even though Felix knew that everything about that was a <em>very big deal</em>, for Sylvain more than most people even, but he didn’t know how to put any of that into words without sounding like a tool and Lysithea was still glaring at him like she was going to smack him into next week if he said any more stupid things— so instead he just said, “...Congratulations.”</p><p>“Congratulations are due all around, I think!” Sylvain said brightly. “I mean, look at <em>these</em> two lovely ladies.”</p><p>“Sylvain, do you remember what I said about <em>false flattery</em>?”</p><p>“And remember what I said about it not being flattery if it’s true?”</p><p>Sylvain and Lysithea smiled at each other, and suddenly Felix felt like the odd man out, sitting in <em>his</em> place of business with <em>his</em> wife.</p><p>“You’ve always been lovely, Lysithea— and you’ve only gotten more so with age.” Sylvain <em>winked</em> at her, like she was— just another one of those <em>girls</em> that Sylvain always used to chase even though he hated every single one of them, instead of <em>Felix’s wife</em>.</p><p>Felix wasn’t normally a jealous person. He got annoyed by people making Lysithea feel uncomfortable, but that was only natural. He’d only ever seen the occasional seasonal hunter or drunk farmer even <em>try</em> to flirt with her, and it never really brought out anything in him— except maybe a sense of satisfaction at seeing Lysithea tell them off.</p><p>Okay— maybe he <em>was</em> a jealous person, because this was the first time he had ever seen someone flirting with Lysithea where she hadn’t immediately shut them down… In fact, it almost seemed like she was… <em>Enjoying </em>it?</p><p>She was definitely <em>smiling</em>, at least, even as she was shaking her head and saying, “It’s interesting to see that even getting married to a woman as strict as Ingrid hasn’t helped you grow out of your immature, flirtatious phase.”</p><p>“Me? <em>Flirt</em>? We’re both <em>married</em>, Lysithea!” The look on Sylvain’s face and the shock and awe in his voice was worthy of the worst roadside theater. “I would <em>never</em>! I’m just stating a fact! And you can’t even try to argue that <em>this</em> little lady isn’t lovely.”</p><p>Sylvain reached out to poke and prod at Evangeline’s cheek, making her giggle and try to hide her face in Lysithea’s shirt like she was suddenly <em>shy</em>.</p><p>Felix had never really thought about whether Sylvain would have flirted with Lysithea before. The answer, in hindsight, was completely obvious; Sylvain flirted with every woman he met, with little regard for age or marital status. He made passes at pretty much all of their <em>other</em> classmates, not to mention the knights and teachers. It was only natural that he had done the same with Lysithea.</p><p>Seeing her almost… <em>Encouraging </em>him, though? Even if it was by insulting him? Lysithea <em>had</em> to be trying to get under his skin because of what he’d said and done earlier. She <em>had</em> to be. He couldn’t think of any other logical explanation.</p><p>He was just about to call her out on it when she was rescued by the sound of the bell ringing from the store; they had a customer. Since Lysithea still had Evangeline sitting in her lap and Felix had ample reason to want to <em>leave the room</em>, he immediately stood up and went to go help whoever it was.</p><p>While trying not to think about the fact that he was leaving his wife with a man who was flirting with her, and that man was <em>Sylvain</em>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Did I say something wrong again?”</p><p><em>You know exactly what you said</em>, Lysithea thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to be mad at him. Sylvain was just being… Sylvain. Even if she’d been exaggerating when she said he hadn’t matured at all since she had last seen him, it was rather refreshing to see that he was still, essentially, Sylvain.</p><p>Besides, she didn’t think that their little back and forth had been genuinely upsetting for Felix. He was normally rather upfront about that sort of thing. No, more likely he had just gotten annoyed because he saw it as Lysithea attempting to get under his skin after their spat out back.</p><p>...Which he wasn’t entirely wrong about, but mostly she was doing it because it seemed to come naturally with Sylvain. A far cry from the last time he’d tried to flirt with her, when she had blown up at him about it. Now, at least, he seemed more like he was trying to be lighthearted and goofy, rather than serious.</p><p>“No, Felix just went to help a customer. I’m sure he’ll be back in a few moments.”</p><p>The way Sylvain nodded but didn’t look at her told her that he wasn’t completely convinced, which was fair, since she <em>was</em> lying just a touch. She was also sure Felix was also leaving so that when he came back he could change the subject without looking like he was changing the subject.</p><p>Sure enough, he came back a few moments later— leaving the door just a smidge open behind him so they could hear the bell over the door again if another customer happened to come in while they were talking— and sat back down, arms crossed and looking once again like a stern interrogator.</p><p>Lysithea knew she had trained her daughter well when at that moment, Evangeline said, “Dada!” and started reaching out for him, her little chubby hands making grabbing motions, far too adorable to be ignored.</p><p>Lysithea picked her up off her lap and handed her over to Felix, who reached for her automatically, bundling her into his arms. He was still scowling in Sylvain’s general direction— but the effect was now sufficiently ruined by the happy, gurgling baby girl he was holding against his chest.</p><p>“You know, when I heard the story— I had a really hard time believing it was you, Felix,” Sylvain said.</p><p>“What ‘story’?”</p><p>“The reason I came here— Leonie heard a story from a travelling merchant about you, and that’s how I tracked you down. I never would have thought to look all the way out here if not for that.”</p><p>Lysithea saw Felix’s eyes narrow, and it only took her a second longer to realize what Felix was realizing.</p><p>“<em>Anna</em>.” Felix shook his head. “I should have known.”</p><p>Anna had passed through their village just a few weeks ago— plenty of time for word to reach Leonie, and then to reach Sylvain, apparently. Lysithea doubted the merchant had known who Felix was <em>exactly</em>, given that she had only ever really talked to the Professor when she had been a merchant at the Academy, but she had the sort of eye for faces that was common among merchants constantly peddling their wares to the same people— always on the lookout for a chance to sell them something. It made sense that he would be familiar enough for her to take notice.</p><p>“At first I thought there was no way it could be true— that you would end up settling down out here in the middle of nowhere, and running a <em>bakery</em>, of all things?” Sylvain laughed and shook his head like the idea was completely ridiculous. “But now I can see why.”</p><p>Sylvain looked over at Lysithea and gave her another wink, which made her roll her eyes.</p><p>Felix, on the other hand, looked away and was completely silent.</p><p>He kept bouncing Evangeline in his lap, but Lysithea could tell that something was bothering him— not enough to make him storm out like he had earlier, for whatever reason, but enough that he had to stop and think and <em>collect</em> himself.</p><p>“You’re thinking so hard I can hear it, Felix,” Sylvain said before she had a chance to. “What’s on your mind? Was it something I said?”</p><p>“Something like that,” Felix finally replied, now turning his attention to Evangeline, still not looking at Sylvain— or at her, for that matter. “I guess I’m just surprised that <em>you</em> ended up where you did, too— staying in the Kingdom and marrying Ingrid. I suppose we both surprised each other, huh?”</p><p>Felix didn’t sound angry when he said it. He didn’t sound much of anything, except maybe vaguely distracted by their baby, who was eagerly demanding her daddy’s attention. For Felix who normally sounded vaguely annoyed about <em>everything</em>, he sounded downright <em>pleasant</em>, in fact.</p><p>So she knew <em>something</em> strange was going on when that was enough to make Sylvain’s face fall, a wince appearing across it for the briefest second before he schooled it back into neutrality.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said, smiling in a way that reminded her very much of Claude— it didn’t reach his eyes at all. She almost wanted to make a joke about how Sylvain would make a good politician if he learned to stop flirting with everything, but she had a feeling that would only make the sudden tension in the room <em>worse</em>, not better. “I guess we did.”</p><p>The room went silent except for Evangeline’s little gurgles, and just when Lysithea thought something was about to <em>break</em>, those gurgles turned into full on fussing— the kind of fussing she started doing when she needed changing.</p><p>“I’ll take her,” Lysithea said quickly, trying not to look like she was trying to literally grab her and run. Part of her thought she should stay— but another part of her was just… <em>Uncomfortable</em>. So she took Evangeline and headed out the back door before anyone could say anything else.</p><p>She only wondered if Felix would realize she didn’t actually need to take Evangeline out of the bakery to change Evangeline after she was already halfway to the house… And at the same time she hoped she wouldn’t come back to a scene of violence.</p><p> </p><p>As soon as the door swung shut behind Lysithea, the room was dead silent.</p><p>Sylvain didn’t know what to say— or maybe he could think of far too <em>many</em> things to say, and couldn’t settle on any one of them.</p><p>Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he realized he needed to say <em>something</em>— and so he picked the very first thing that came to mind.</p><p>“So. Lysithea, huh?”</p><p>“Don’t.”</p><p>Sylvain was used to Felix growling at him, sometimes almost literally. Being friends with Felix meant you had to be ready for verbal abuse at any moment. But there was something <em>different </em>this time— something about the harsh, cold tone of his voice that sent a shiver up Sylvain’s spine.</p><p>“Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.” Felix shook his head. “You’ve seen me now. You know I’m alive. Just go <em>home</em> already, Sylvain.”</p><p>“Felix, I—” Sylvain practically choked on his own words. They were all <em>there</em>, he was just… Struggling to get them out. To actually say what he’d wanted to say for more than two years, the words that had kept him up at night, wondering if things might have been different if he’d just been able to say them.</p><p>But Felix wouldn’t even <em>look</em> at him. He just sat there, staring at the wall, like if he ignored him for long enough Sylvain would just… Give up and leave.</p><p>So instead all he said was, “Felix, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t say things you don’t mean, Sylvain. That gets you in enough trouble already.”</p><p>“I <em>do</em> mean it, Felix. I…” Sylvain made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. He’d spend <em>so long</em> thinking about what he would say to Felix once he found him, and now all of a sudden it was just… <em>Gone</em>. “What I said that night… I <em>never</em> should have said those things to you. It was selfish and unfair of me. I was just frustrated, and—”</p><p>“<em>Stop, Sylvain!</em>”</p><p>He practically jumped a foot in the air when Felix slammed his fist down on the table.</p><p>A lot of people would call Felix hot tempered, but Sylvain didn’t think that was quite true. He was <em>cold</em> tempered, if anything. He was aloof and standoffish, and if you annoyed him, he would happily ignore you— or cut you out of his life entirely.</p><p>So while Sylvain was used to hearing Felix yell at him— usually in exasperation if not outright frustration— he wasn’t used to seeing such a violent outburst, even a small and otherwise harmless one.</p><p>Maybe things really <em>had</em> changed… A lot more than Sylvain had been expecting.</p><p>“All of that is in the past,” Felix said firmly, but not in the reassuring way that felt like he was being forgiven— more in the way that made him feel like he was being <em>forgotten</em>. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We both made our choices, and here we are.”</p><p>“...Yeah. I guess so. But Felix—”</p><p>“Is that why you really came here? Because you wanted me to forgive you for our stupid fight back then?”</p><p>Sylvain opened his mouth to say something to that— to deny it, maybe, or just to say that the fight hadn’t been <em>stupid</em>— but nothing came out. He just opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally looking away, saying nothing.</p><p>“If that’s what you want, fine. You’re forgiven. Happy?”</p><p>“Felix, that’s not what I— I mean, I didn’t track you down all this way just to say I’m sorry. I always wanted to say that, but I swear to the Goddess I just wanted to make sure you were <em>safe</em>. Ingrid and I were <em>scared</em>, especially when we started hearing stories about all of the crazy things you were doing… When those stories just stopped coming, a lot of people assumed the worst.”</p><p>Sylvain didn’t include himself in that number. He had never been able to bring himself to believe that Felix had just ended up dead on a battlefield somewhere because of some bandits or something, not after all of the things they had survived together fighting with Claude and the Professor.</p><p>He couldn’t really speak for Ingrid because they had never really talked about it. He had a feeling Ingrid was always tiptoeing around the subject, patiently tolerating his obsession with tracking Felix down but not holding out any hope that he would actually find him. She had always been the more pragmatic of the two of them— kept him grounded, some would say.</p><p>He also had a feeling there were just certain things about Felix she didn’t want to hear, and it was easier to avoid the subject altogether.</p><p>“Good,” Felix said, which was <em>not</em> the response he’d been expecting. “I left for a reason, Sylvain. If people there think I’m dead, that just means I don’t have to worry about people coming to look for me and dragging me back.”</p><p>“Is that what you thought I was here to do at first? Is that why you ran off like that?”</p><p>“What else was I <em>supposed</em> to think?”</p><p>For the first time since Lysithea left— no, for the first time in the entire conversation— Felix looked directly at him, and this time it was <em>Sylvain</em> who had to look away.</p><p>“After what happened, having you show up and act like nothing was wrong— you have to admit it was suspicious.”</p><p><em>Only to you</em>, Sylvain thought, but not wanting Felix to storm off again— or to get kicked out of his house entirely— he just shrugged and said, “Sorry. I guess I got a little overexcited. I was looking for a <em>long</em> time, Felix.”</p><p>Felix just let out a little ‘hmph’ noise and looked away again. Sylvain couldn’t tell what was going through his head, but at the very least he didn’t look all tense and upset— just his normal baseline ‘annoyed’.</p><p>Although he supposed he really couldn’t say what was or wasn’t normal for Felix anymore, could he?</p><p>“Look, if you want me to go… I’ll go. You’re right. I’ve seen you now, and I don’t want to intrude.”</p><p>He could go home to Ingrid, tell her that Felix was alive and well and happy where he was, and leave it at that. Maybe he would write to him sometimes. He was sure based on what he’d seen that Lysithea would bully him into replying, and he could be content knowing that Felix was living happily with his cute little family in a cozy bakery out in the woods.</p><p>But for reasons he didn’t really want to stop and examine, just thinking about things ending <em>like that</em> made his stomach do painful little flips.</p><p>“...You can stay. For a little while.”</p><p>Felix was mumbling so quietly that at first, Sylvain wasn’t even sure he’d heard him properly. When he realized what he’d said, though, he perked up immediately.</p><p>“...Are you sure?” He was still a bit skeptical, though. Felix didn’t seem happy at all with his presence… And considering what he’d said so far, Sylvain didn’t blame him.</p><p>“You <em>did</em> come all this way,” Felix said. “It was a long trip, wasn’t it? You’re going to need time to rest up. Once you’ve done that, then you can go home.”</p><p>It wasn’t the most friendly invitation— but it <em>was</em> an invitation, and one that looked and sounded genuine enough. And that would have to be enough for Sylvain.</p><p>“Thanks, Felix.” There were other things he wanted to say— <em>I’m sorry</em> again, <em>You’re a great friend</em>, among others. But he didn’t want to push his luck.</p><p>“Don’t mention it,” Felix replied, and Sylvain had a feeling he was supposed to take that literally.</p><p> </p><p>It felt very awkward to be standing outside of her own bakery, anxiously holding her baby and waiting to be able to go inside, but the absolute <em>last</em> thing she wanted to do was to walk right into the conversation that was going on.</p><p>At the very least Evangeline was being quiet, content to gum away at her hair while she pressed her ear to the door and tried to listen.</p><p>It wasn’t <em>eavesdropping</em> when it was in her own kitchen, right? And they should have expected her to be back at any moment.</p><p>She didn’t <em>quite</em> understand what was being said— the context, at least— but it confirmed what she had been thinking earlier… Something had happened between Felix and Sylvain before Felix had left the Kingdom to become a mercenary. Some kind of fight, it sounded like.</p><p>Lysithea had never asked him much about his decision to leave. For one, it had seemed fairly obvious: Felix had always been vocal about disliking the nobility of Faerghus and the expectations placed upon him, and how much he valued his fighting skills, so him running off to become a mercenary was well suited to him.</p><p>For another, there were times when she could see how heavily it all weighed on him… His father’s death, Prince Dimitri’s, and his own decision to leave… She didn’t want to force him to go through that pain just to satisfy her own curiosity. After all, he had never pried when it came to her Crests or her illness… He had simply accepted the explanation she had given him at face value and focused on what he could <em>do</em> about the situation.</p><p>But now… Now she couldn’t help but be curious. It was only natural, right?</p><p>If she played her cards right, she wouldn’t have to worry about upsetting Felix at all… In fact, if she played her cards <em>just</em> right, he would never even have to know.</p><p>She had already been pleased enough to see Sylvain— but now she also saw it as an <em>opportunity</em>.</p><p>The conversation was winding down just as Evangeline started to babble again, and since she didn’t want her husband or Sylvain to think she was being a weirdo just standing outside the door (or to realize she was listening in on them), Lysithea took that as her cue to step inside like absolutely nothing was wrong and she hadn’t heard a single thing.</p><p>“All clean!” she announced, happily hoisting Evangeline up in her arms so she could lean in and nuzzle their noses together, making her giggle and flail her little baby arms happily. “Did I miss anything?”</p><p>“I told Sylvain he could stay for a while before heading back home,” Felix said.</p><p>Lysithea had heard that part, but she decided to act surprised anyway. “Oh? That’s surprisingly very generous of you, Felix.”</p><p>Felix just rolled his eyes at her as he got up out of his chair and headed into the kitchen. Whether he was going there to actually do anything or just to look cool while ignoring her teasing was debatable.</p><p>“I hope I’m not intruding,” Sylvain said.</p><p>“And <em>that’s</em> surprisingly considerate of you,” she said in the same teasing tone. “Don’t worry yourself. We never have guests. It’ll be nice, for a change.”</p><p>Of course, they <em>intentionally</em> didn’t have guests; that was why Lysithea had relocated herself and her parents out to the middle of nowhere, for much the same reason as Felix had stayed on the move as a mercenary. She didn’t want them, or herself, being dragged back into the political mire of Fodlan. Claude and the Professor might have changed things a lot… But change always bred contempt, and they had all been through enough.</p><p>“How long do you think you’ll be staying?” she asked. Sylvain shrugged.</p><p>“How long do you think it’ll take before Felix gets sick of me?” Sylvain joked, laughing. Lysithea gave him a flat look, and his laughter tapered off nervously. “In all honesty? Probably not long. I really should be getting back as soon as possible. Don’t want to leave Ingrid without my delightful presence for too long.”</p><p><em>Not to mention the fact that she’s pregnant</em>, she thought, but Sylvain had always hidden actual feelings behind jokes and levity, as far as she could tell. Not only had she seen it for herself, but when they had still been at school and later at war, Felix had complained about it rather openly. But Lysithea didn’t think it was worth bringing up.</p><p>It <em>did </em>give her an idea, though.</p><p>“In that case, I had better get things ready for you,” she said, walking over to deposit Evangeline in the playpen they had at the far end of the room so they could watch her while they tended the shop. “Felix, will you keep an eye on things here for me while I go get things together back at the house?”</p><p>Felix said something that may or may not have involved actual words, but he waved at her without turning to look at her to acknowledge that he’d heard her, which was good enough.</p><p>“You really don’t need to go to any trouble—”</p><p>“Sylvain, can you stop talking?”</p><p>Lysithea gave him an even harsher look now, crossing her arms in his general direction.</p><p>“It’s no trouble,” she said firmly. “Really, you need to stop acting like anyone doing the bare minimum for you is going out of their way. You’re sounding almost as bad as Marianne!”</p><p>It was hard to keep up her Stern Disapproval when Sylvain’s eyes went as wide as tea saucers, but she managed, somehow.</p><p>“Now, do me a favour and keep an eye on my baby while I go and take care of a few things back at the house.”</p><p>“Yes ma’am.”</p><p>Lysithea couldn’t resist the smug smile that put on her face, nor could she resist throwing out a, “Good boy.” and revelling in the way Sylvain’s face turned beet red as she left.</p><p> </p><p>If you had told Felix that what had started as an otherwise normal day would progress to him standing in the kitchen of his bakery trying very hard to ignore the fact that <em>Sylvain</em> was playing with his baby in the background, he…</p><p>Well. He had absolutely no idea what he would have said or done, that was how far from his mind any such thoughts had been.</p><p>He literally had no idea what to say or do with Lysithea gone, not after the conversation he and Sylvain had before she had shown back up. When he had extended the invitation to Sylvain to stay, he hadn’t thought about the fact that that meant Sylvain would be <em>staying</em>— and that meant he would be hanging around without anything to do other than try to talk to him.</p><p>Thankfully he was too distracted by playing with Evangeline to pay much attention to Felix. Which was… Only marginally better, but at least it gave him some relative peace and quiet.</p><p>There were also customers to distract him; it was a relatively busy day for their bakery, which was still incredibly slow as far as a typical business would go, but it meant that every so often he got to disappear into the front room and sell some bread or cake or whatever to one of his neighbors and temporarily not have to worry about the fact that Sylvain was sitting in his back room.</p><p>He wasn’t even sure why it… <em>Unnerved</em> him so much. Maybe it was just the fact that it had been unexpected. After all, what had happened between them had happened years ago; Felix was over it. That was why he was living a quiet, peaceful life out here with his wife and daughter instead of getting dragged back to what remained of the Kingdom. Obviously Sylvain had made peace with things, too, even if he obviously still felt guilty about his own part in the whole thing.</p><p>Either way, it wasn’t going to last long. Sylvain was only going to be there for as long as it took him to recover from his journey, and then he was going to head back home. Then Felix wouldn’t have to think about it any more. Maybe he would even write on occasion— now that he was sure Sylvain wasn’t intending to drag him back like he first thought.</p><p>Felix was back in the kitchen listening to Sylvain singing some nonsense nursery rhyme to Evangeline while he stood at the counter sipping the same cup of cold tea he’d been drinking for over an hour when Lysithea finally returned, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around him from behind.</p><p>“Did anything interesting happen while I was gone?” she asked, her voice muffled by the fact that her face was buried into his back.</p><p>“I sold the last of the chocolate ganache cake,” he said, and Lysithea made a little pleased noise.</p><p>“You two make a really cute couple, you know.”</p><p>For a split second, he had almost forgotten that Sylvain was even <em>there</em>; he shot a glare at him over his shoulder, but Sylvain just smirked at him from the table, bouncing Evangeline on his knee.</p><p>“If I wanted your opinion, I would ask for it.” Then he went right back to ignoring him.</p><p>“You know, I was thinking…”</p><p>Uh oh. He didn’t like the tone of Lysithea’s voice— or the way she was dragging her finger over his chest in intricate little patterns, the way she <em>always</em> did when she wanted something, especially something she knew he was likely to say no to.</p><p>“And?”</p><p>“I thought I might do something special for dinner tonight,” she said. “Since we have a guest.”</p><p>“Aww, Lysithea, you really don’t need to—”</p><p>“Be quiet, Sylvain.”</p><p>“Shut up, Sylvain.”</p><p>Sylvain put up the one hand that wasn’t holding Evangeline and keeping her from tipping off his lap in a show of peace, looking like he was afraid of Lysithea frying him with her magic or Felix stabbing him with his sword.</p><p>“...A special dinner?” Felix looked at her with one raised eyebrow. “That’s all?”</p><p>“What else would I want to do?” Lysithea batted her eyelashes at him.</p><p>There was a glimmer in her eyes, but Felix couldn’t even begin to guess what that was about— and frankly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. So he just shook his head and said, “Fine. Whatever makes you happy.”</p><p>“Good,” Lysithea said, with the kind of smug air in her voice that told him she had never been asking for <em>permission</em>, just letting him know to give him time to adjust. “In that case, I have a few things I need you to run into the village and get— we can close up shop early today. Sylvain, you can come with me and get yourself comfortable in your room— and help me get started on dinner.”</p><p>Felix blinked, just about to argue with that arrangement of tasks when he realized Lysithea already had her mind set on it— arguing with her was like trying to argue with a brick wall, and he had already used up his patience for the day. Better to just go along with what she said and deal with everything else later.</p><p>Before he could even ask exactly <em>what</em> she was sending him on a mad hunt into town for, Lysithea shoved a shopping list at him. “Here. And make sure everything is nice and fresh.”</p><p>“Yes, yes.” He shook his head.</p><p>Best to get it over with before he thought about it too much.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Felix and Lysithea’s house was every bit as comfortable and cozy as their bakery. Sylvain thought the place was extremely quaint— and not in the least bit the kind of place he would imagine either Lysithea or Felix settling down.</p><p>Sylvain sat on the edge of the bed in the guest room Lysithea had shown him to. It was small— no bigger than the dorm room he’d had back at the Academy— but it was nice and comfortable. At the end of the bed there was a handmade quilt folded up, and all of the furniture had the rustic look of something that had been rustically hand carved by someone who was talented but shy of being an artisan.</p><p>When Lysithea had shown him into the house, he had made a joke that the only reason he could tell Felix lived there was because there was a sword hanging on the wall in the front hall. At least Lysithea had seemed to find it funny; he was sure Felix would have just rolled his eyes at him, if not ignored him completely.</p><p>He had changed out of his travel clothes into the cleanest clothes he had, which still weren’t exactly the <em>cleanest</em> given the length of his journey, but he hoped would pass for one night.</p><p>The ship had absolutely sailed on either Felix or Lysithea being impressed by him anyhow.</p><p>As soon as he stepped out of the guest room, changed and as put together as he could manage, he could smell dinner cooking and could hear Lysithea singing from the kitchen. He descended the stairs, following the smell and the sound until he found himself in a kitchen that was just as warm and cozy as the one in the back of their bakery.</p><p>“Is there anything I can do to help?”</p><p>Lysithea was standing at the counter, kneading dough of some kind. When she turned to face him, he noticed a streak of flour across the bridge of her nose, and resisted the urge to reach out and wipe it off like he would have done without hesitation back during their days at the Academy.</p><p>If that wasn’t growth, he didn’t know what was.</p><p>“If you could get a start on chopping up the vegetables while I put the dough to rest and sear the meat, that would be very helpful.” She went to the sink to quickly wash her hands of the flour and other ingredients that were smeared all over them.</p><p>“Gotcha.”</p><p>Sylvain wasn’t exactly a wiz in the kitchen, but he knew his way around one; when you had a wife, and now a <em>pregnant</em> wife, who’s greatest joy in life was eating, you quickly figured it out when she suddenly started demanding food in the middle of the night long after the cooking staff had gone home.</p><p>That, and the lessons that he’d begged Dedue to give him back at the Academy before Felix had transferred to the Golden Deer and he’d followed like a lost puppy— but he tried not to think too much about that sort of thing.</p><p>There was a small pile of gorgeously ripe tomatoes sitting by the cutting board, and once Lysithea gave him the instruction of “nicely cubed, please”, he got right to work chopping them up into tiny pieces.</p><p>It was almost a hard fit for him and Lysithea to be in the kitchen together, that was how small it was— and he was a fair sight bigger than Felix, who he presumed was the only other person who was regularly in the kitchen with her, so he quickly got used to her bumping into him while she was trying to move around and do her own thing.</p><p>“When you’re done with that, could you chop up those onions? The same, please.”</p><p>“Yes ma’am.”</p><p>He would have saluted if he wasn’t holding a knife and if his hands weren’t covered in tomato juice.</p><p>“You’ve certainly gotten a lot better at listening since the last time I saw you.”</p><p>“What can I say? Ingrid has me trained well.”</p><p>“Hm. I might have to write to her and ask her for some pointers.”</p><p>“Oh? Felix not being well-behaved enough for your tastes?”</p><p>“He could use some improvements.”</p><p>Sylvain laughed, and Lysithea laughed, and even though she didn’t know what they were laughing about, the two laughing adults in the kitchen made Evangeline in her high chair— where she was determined to make as much of a mess of herself as possible by shoving some kind of fruit mush into her face— laugh right along with them.</p><p>It was… Nice. It definitely wasn’t what Sylvain had been expecting when he had set out to find Felix. Mostly he’d been expecting the story to turn out to be completely fake, or at the very least having nothing to do with Felix at all. Felix settling down out in the middle of nowhere? He just couldn’t imagine it.</p><p>And he had never thought that, in the off chance that he <em>did</em> find Felix there, it would be Lysithea he found him with. But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He’d always had an inkling that Lysithea had a crush on Felix. He’d just never stopped to think about whether or not Felix felt the same.</p><p>He’d never <em>had</em> to think about it, really.</p><p>But here they were, married, with a beautiful baby girl who had completely dyed herself and her high chair red with mashed berries. Lysithea abandoned her post at the stove to clean her up with a damp washcloth, muttering Baby Nonsense at her about how she had managed to get herself so dirty so fast.</p><p>It wasn’t like he was envious. He didn’t have anything to be envious <em>about</em>. He had his own beautiful wife waiting for him at home— literally waiting for him to get back to their territory, and boy, was he going to surprise her with the news— and his own beautiful baby on the way. Maybe he didn’t have the quiet, cozy life that Felix did, but as Felix would no doubt happily remind him, that was his own doing; the Professor and Claude would have found someone who could take over running Gautier territory for him.</p><p>He doubted he and Ingrid would have been happy just retiring quietly to the countryside when there was so much work to be done in restoring their homeland, though— in fact, he was sure that if he suggested such a thing, she would just tell him he was being lazy. They were young. Retiring to a cozy life in the countryside could wait.</p><p>He had to admit, though— Felix and Lysithea made it look pretty good.</p><p>Lysithea had just gotten back to finish up with the steaks she was cooking and Sylvain had just finished up chopping onions— without crying!— when the front door opened and slammed, and a moment later Felix came into the kitchen holding a raw pheasant and a covered basket.</p><p>“...Why does Eva look like she dumped an entire jar of jam on herself?”</p><p>“Because that’s exactly what she did, more or less.” Lysithea gestured for Felix to come over. “Could you put that there? And could you bring me the Albinean berries and Noa fruit from the bakery?”</p><p>Sylvain laughed at the way Felix rolled his eyes as he headed back for the door as soon as he dropped off his little delivery.</p><p>The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, it seemed.</p><p>“What else do you need me to do?” he asked as soon as he handed off the freshly chopped tomatoes and onions.</p><p>“I may need some help with dessert, but for now, could you clean up after Eva a little bit? I’ll have Felix give her a proper bath when he gets back, but I don’t want the entire dining room to be a sticky mess.”</p><p>“Sure thing.”</p><p>He took a wet rag and went over to little Evangeline in her high chair, who giggled happily at his approach.</p><p>“Hey there, Eva.” His voice rose the way it always did when people talked to babies. “You made quite a mess over here while we weren’t watching, huh? Were those berries good? I bet they were.”</p><p>He started wiping the remnants of her meal up as she happily clapped like having him clean up after her was some kind of game.</p><p><em>I thought you were Lysithea’s daughter, not Hilda’s,</em> he thought, but didn’t say it out loud.</p><p>Looking at her, though, the joke wouldn’t have held any water. She had the typical Fraldarius navy blue hair, and her eyes were narrower than Lysithea’s, but they were the same cute pale pink colour Lysithea’s were, and she had her mother’s little button nose pursed mouth.</p><p>She was like a perfect little blend of her parents. The best of both worlds.</p><p>“Sylvain, why are you sitting there staring at my baby.”</p><p>The tone of Felix’s voice wasn’t a question; it almost made him jump because he hadn’t heard him come back in, but Sylvain turned around and gave him a smile.</p><p>“She looks a lot like her mother,” he said. “But she’s got your hair, huh? I bet it’s just as annoying to deal with in the morning as yours always was.”</p><p>“Hmph.” Felix just let out a <em>noise</em> instead of actually replying to that as he plucked Evangeline out of her high chair. “Just go help Lysithea and stop being weird.”</p><p>“I can’t make any promises!”</p><p>Felix disappeared around the corner and up the stairs, and Sylvain finished cleaning up around the high chair before returning to the kitchen where Lysithea was already busy preparing the fruits she had asked Felix to bring her.</p><p>“Sylvain, while I’m doing this, can you keep an eye on the stew? Then I might need your help making the dough for the buns.”</p><p>“Yes ma’am.”</p><p>He definitely didn’t keep saying that because he was hoping she would say what she had said earlier. Nope. Not at all.</p><p>“Anything else I can do?”</p><p>“I have a few more little things, but I think I can manage them as long as you’re keeping an eye on that.” Lysithea sighed. “It’s nice having someone who can help in the kitchen for once.”</p><p>“Felix doesn’t help you cook?”</p><p>“He… <em>Tries</em>.”</p><p>“That bad, huh?”</p><p>“He’s not a bad cook, if I let him take care of things on his own. But he and I have very different tastes, and when we’re trying to cook <em>together</em>… Well.” Lysithea sighed again and shook her head. “Neither of us are especially good at working with others.”</p><p>Sylvain didn’t want to agree with that… But he could definitely see where she was coming from. So instead he just said, “Since you’re going to all this trouble, I’m happy to help.”</p><p>“In that case, if you could hand me that knife from over there…”</p><p> </p><p>Felix hadn’t been intending to wash up for a simple dinner with his wife and the guest he didn’t even want to be hosting, but the thing about trying to bathe a one year old was that you usually ended up taking a bath yourself at the same time.</p><p>Even with the small amount of water Felix had put in the tub, half the bathroom had somehow ended up wet by the end of bathtime, and Felix along with it. So after he had gotten her cleaned up, dried off, and put to bed, he had decided fuck it, he might as well wash up given how generally <em>damp</em> he was anyway!</p><p>By the time <em>that</em> was finished and he got dressed again— in the same clothes he had been wearing, because even if Lysithea was making something special, he didn’t see it as any particularly special occasion— he could smell something <em>delicious</em> coming from the kitchen, and he could hear laughter that made him feel warm and fuzzy inside for a second before that vague sense of dread came creeping back in.</p><p>When he stepped into the kitchen, even though he <em>knew</em> what to expect, it still surprised him when he saw <em>Sylvain</em> sitting at his table. Not just sitting at his table— sitting and laughing and chatting with his wife while the two of them sipped wine together.</p><p>Not caring that he was interrupting their conversation, Felix stepped up, sat down at a chair firmly between the two of them, and said, “I put Evangeline to bed.”</p><p>“Good!” Was the flush on Lysithea’s cheeks from her laughter, or was this not her first glass of wine? It was hard to tell. “Dinner is in the oven and on the stove, but it’s still going to be a while— do you want a glass of wine?”</p><p>Normally Felix would have said no. He wasn’t opposed to the occasional glass, but he also didn’t see much point in it. Where had Lysithea even gotten a bottle of wine? He supposed she must have bought it from one of the travelling merchants that passed through their village occasionally without him noticing.</p><p>Right now, though— it might not have been a <em>special</em> occasion, but it was definitely a <em>stressful</em> one.</p><p>So he silently accepted the glass of wine Lysithea offered him without even waiting for his answer and drank half of it in one go, which turned out to be a mistake because it was a <em>lot</em> stronger than he’d been expecting (no wonder Lysithea was already red in the face, and even Sylvain’s cheeks were starting to show a hint of colour). It took a lot of willpower for him to not start spluttering on the almost vinegar-y liquor.</p><p>“You can’t tell me you <em>like</em> this,” he said, turning to Lysithea. He had expected it to taste like fruit juice, given his wife’s hatred of anything that wasn’t as sweet as candy.</p><p>“Wine is wine. It all tastes terrible to me,” she said, which… He supposed was believable enough. “Alcohol isn’t supposed to <em>taste</em> good.”</p><p>“Alcohol can taste <em>very </em>good, thank you very much,” Sylvain said as he took another drink of his own wine and made a face at it. “Just not the stuff you can get off the back of a merchant’s cart out in the middle of nowhere, I suppose.”</p><p>“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Lysithea said.</p><p>Felix took another drink of what barely qualified as wine. It was just as bitter as his first sip, but he was… Getting used to it.</p><p>He was more inclined to agree with Lysithea; he’d never really cared about how alcohol <em>tasted</em> as long as it did its job. Which, in this case, was making sitting between his wife and his former best friend while they chatted and gossiped and he tried not to crawl completely out of his skin slightly more tolerable.</p><p>He took another drink.</p><p>Hopefully it would start working soon.</p><p> </p><p>By the time dinner was on the table— and almost a full bottle of vinegar wine later— it was starting to work.</p><p>The feeling like he was going to crawl out of his own skin had left and was replaced with a pleasant, almost tingling sensation. He was halfway through a bowl of Daphnel stew and a hearty helping of meat pie made in the same style they had always made at the Monastery, neither of which Lysithea had ever made for him before because she didn’t like either of them.</p><p>“I don’t <em>mind</em> the stew,” she had said in her own defense. “It’s just a lot of hassle to make for a typical night.”</p><p>It wasn’t like Felix couldn’t just make his own food— and often did. He just tried not to be bitter about the fact that it was apparently worth the hassle when <em>Sylvain</em> was around.</p><p>The wine helped.</p><p>Sylvain was behaving himself, which <em>also</em> helped. He was making friendly conversation that didn’t stray anywhere weird the entire time, a lot of which centered around their school days before the war broke out, and some of which centered around the food itself.</p><p>“I mean it, Lysithea— you’re really a great cook.”</p><p>“You helped quite a lot yourself. I’m surprised. I never thought you could cook.”</p><p>“Eh, I just picked up a thing or two here and there. Nothing really that impressive.”</p><p>They got off on some other weird tangent and Felix immediately let himself stop paying attention, relaxing and letting the warmth of the food in his stomach and the warmth of the wine combined make him feel all loose and fuzzy headed.</p><p>It was partially the alcohol— but it was also partially just the fact that he hadn’t really had a chance to properly relax since Sylvain had arrived that morning. He had been tense since the moment Sylvain had walked through his door, first because he was sure Sylvain had been there to drag him back to the Kingdom and then because everything about Sylvain was stressful for him.</p><p>Maybe he didn’t have any reason to worry, after all. After their little conversation when Lysithea was away, Sylvain had been perfectly well-behaved.</p><p>He still wasn’t sure how he felt about him being there— or about <em>seeing him</em> in general— but he could at least say that it had gone better than he would have ever expected.</p><p>He probably should have known better than to even <em>think</em> something like that.</p><p>It started innocuously enough— with Lysithea berating Sylvain for his womanizing habits.</p><p>“Honestly, I still have a hard time understanding how you didn’t get yourself horribly murdered by some jealous woman— or by someone’s father or brother.”</p><p>“You and me both,” Sylvain laughed. “Although I came close a few times. Hey, Felix, remember that time you had to pretend you were my boyfriend so that one girl’s brother didn’t strangle me?”</p><p>Felix tensed up immediately.</p><p>“<em>Really</em>?” Lysithea’s eyes widened, sparkling like that was the best thing she’d heard all day.</p><p>“Oh yeah. I had to get up early to train with Felix every day for like a month after that to make it up to him.”</p><p>Of course Felix remembered. How could he forget that one day his best friend had just run up to him, told him to pretend they were dating, and then practically shoved him at an angry hunk of meat who had sworn vengeance for his poor baby sister’s purity?</p><p>Nevermind that he had seen the way the girl batted her eyelashes and hitched her skirts up to draw Sylvain’s eye— there was nothing <em>pure</em> about her.</p><p>He had still made Sylvain train with him for a month after that in hopes he would learn his lesson about running around breaking hearts, not to mention making Felix menace people with swords, but it had taken a continental war for those lessons to <em>really</em> sink in.</p><p>...But he couldn’t just say no. Even if Sylvain deserved to get beaten around a bit for all of his stupidity, Felix wasn’t just going to stand by and <em>watch</em> some lunkhead menace him.</p><p>Even if that meant having to pretend they were dating and dealing with the weird lurching feeling in his chest that came with it.</p><p>It might have been fine if they had just left the subject there, but then Lysithea had to go and add, “You know, if you had tried that with anyone else, I don’t think you would have been able to pull it off. But the two of you always seemed so much like a couple. I think some of our classmates assumed you <em>were</em> one for a while.”</p><p>“Haha, really? I guess we did kind of give off that impression, huh, Felix?”</p><p>Felix glared in Sylvain’s general direction and said nothing.</p><p>Even through the haze of the wine, he could see that Sylvain’s face had gone almost perfectly doll like— the smile was too tight at the edges, the eyes were glazed over in a way the alcohol couldn’t quite account for.</p><p>Either Lysithea didn’t quite know what to look for or she was too drunk to notice, because she just nodded and said, “I believed it myself until Felix told me he had feelings for me.”</p><p>“What does it matter?”</p><p>Now he turned his glare on Lysithea, crossing his arms.</p><p>“What? Oh, I— suppose it doesn’t, really. It was just something I found interesting, that’s all.”</p><p>“It’s pointless to talk about,” Felix said, hoping that would be the end of the conversation.</p><p>Lysithea was a smart woman, but whether she was just bad at reading social cues or whether she was <em>that</em> drunk, Felix couldn’t say— and didn’t care. Because when she narrowed her eyes and said, “I was <em>just</em> making conversation, Felix. Can’t you lighten up for a bit?”</p><p>That was the last straw.</p><p>He stood up abruptly, nearly knocking over the table in his haste when he could barely keep his balance. He heard Lysithea calling after him, asking “Where do you think you’re going, Felix?” but he didn’t pay attention to her at all.</p><p>As soon as he made it out the front door he felt like he could actually breathe again, and he headed straight for the edge of the woods.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sylvain supposed that in Lysithea’s eyes, Felix’s reaction had been completely out of the blue— one minute they had been having a nice, pleasant dinner and the next Felix was nearly knocking the table over and storming out, ignoring her demands to know where he was going.</p><p>For Sylvain, though— he had been waiting for the other shoe to drop since his and Felix’s talk, and it was almost a relief to have it done and over with.</p><p>Lysithea looked like she was going to jump out of her seat and take off after Felix, so Sylvain reached out and put a hand on her shoulder to keep her where she was.</p><p>“Let’s let him have some alone time, huh?” he suggested. “If you try to talk to him right now it’s only going to annoy him more.”</p><p>“I’m sorry you had to come all this way just to have Felix acting like this the whole time.” Lysithea shook her head and frowned. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him today…”</p><p><em>I do</em>, Sylvain thought.</p><p>It was his own fault. He should have shut down that line of conversation as soon as it came up. Lysithea didn’t know any better, but <em>he</em> certainly did. He shouldn’t have encouraged it, even in the most bare terms…</p><p>Goddess, Felix probably thought he was <em>mocking</em> him, sitting there and joking with his wife about how everyone thought the two of them would end up together. He couldn’t blame him for storming out of the room.</p><p>“Look, Lysithea…” Sylvain cringed internally. He knew he was making a big mistake. There was obviously a reason Felix hadn’t told Lysithea about what had happened between them, why he was so uncomfortable having him around.</p><p>Since he hadn’t told Ingrid either, he understood. But he couldn’t just lie to Lysithea, or let her sit there completely confused about what was going on.</p><p>He was pretty sure Felix would hate him for telling her, but considering he was pretty sure Felix never wanted to see him again after what had happened so far…</p><p>“I think I know what’s been bothering Felix. And as nice as it’s been to see the two of you and meet your daughter, it was probably a mistake for me to come here. I’ll head out first thing in the morning, and everything should go back to normal.”</p><p>He knew it was foolish to expect Lysithea would just let him leave it at that, no matter how much he hoped she would.</p><p>“...is this something to do with what you two were talking about this afternoon, when I was changing Evangeline?”</p><p>“You… Heard that, huh?”</p><p>“Ah— I… didn’t want to interrupt the two of you.”</p><p>Sylvain frowned. He supposed they hadn’t really been <em>subtle</em> about the conversation they were having…</p><p>"You were talking about the fact that the two of you had a… <em>Disagreement </em>before Felix left. Is that why he’s been acting like this?”</p><p>“I mean, I can’t be <em>sure</em>,” Sylvain said. “But I think it is. Felix seemed like he was fine when we were talking, but… I think you and I joking around like that really set him off.”</p><p>“You mean when we were talking about everyone thinking the two of you were dating?”</p><p>And here was the part Sylvain had been dreading. Still…</p><p>“Let me think of where to start…”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Felix!”</em>
</p><p> <em>“Sylvain.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Whoa there. No need to sound so happy to see me.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Did you actually need something, or are you just being annoying for no reason?”</em>
</p><p><em>It was a pretty typical daily exchange for the two of them. Some people might have been put off by the fact that Felix sounded so </em>angry<em> all the time, but Sylvain was used to it; they had been friends since Felix was literally born, and nothing about Felix surprised him anymore.</em></p><p><em>Or, at least, that was what he had </em>thought<em>.</em></p><p>
  <em>“I saw you talking with Lysithea.” He smirked as he folded his hands behind his head. “It’s about time you came around to my way of thinking, Felix. I was worried you were going to end up alone.”</em>
</p><p><em>“I’m afraid to even </em>ask<em> what you’re talking about.”</em></p><p><em>“You and Lysithea! The fact that she was trying to force feed you cake! And you were </em>letting<em> her!” Sylvain let out a low whistle. “You must have it </em>bad<em> if you’re willing to go </em>that<em> far.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Ugh. I knew listening to you was a waste of my time.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix rolled his eyes and started walking away. Sylvain wasn’t one to be deterred, though; he followed him, leisurely keeping pace.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Aw, don’t be like that, Felix. I just wanted to congratulate you. You know, if you’re ever looking for tips—”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“—I’ll be sure to stay away from the guy who is constantly having to hide from pissed off women.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Touche. But you can’t deny that I’m good at attracting them in the first place.”</em>
</p><p><em>“I think I would rather stab myself with a rusty fork than try to get relationship advice from </em>you<em>.” Felix rolled his eyes even </em>harder, <em>if that was somehow possible. “Besides, it’s not like that.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Really? It looked like it to me.”</em>
</p><p><em>“</em>Everything<em> looks like flirting to you, Sylvain. You’re incapable of talking to a woman like a normal human being.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Ouch. That hurts, Felix.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He wasn’t about to try and argue that it wasn’t true, though. Sylvain lied to a lot of people, but Felix wasn’t one of them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Well, whenever you’re ready to admit you’ve got feelings for her, I’ll be ready and willing to give you advice.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You’re incorrigible.”</em>
</p><p><em>Felix shook his head and walked away, heading towards the training grounds, but this time Sylvain didn’t follow him. He wasn’t interested in getting dragged into training with Felix, especially when he had… </em>Other<em> things on his mind, which would only give Felix a chance to kick his ass even faster.</em></p><p><em>He had never expected Felix to be interested in one of their classmates. Felix hadn’t been interested in… </em>Anyone<em> for their entire lives. Which was fine, Sylvain wasn’t one to judge.</em></p><p><em>But considering he had transferred classes just so he and Felix would be able to stick together, it rubbed him the wrong way that he hadn’t even </em>known<em> about it before now.</em></p><p><em>Or maybe— even Felix hadn’t known about it? True, Lysithea had definitely been flirting, but maybe Felix didn’t </em>know<em> that? Sylvain would consider it a personal failing if his best friend couldn’t see something so obvious, but then, Felix didn’t really have any experience in the area.</em></p><p>
  <em>Lysithea liked Felix. He had seen her trying to feed him cake, turning away and blushing when she thought Felix wasn’t looking— okay, maybe he had been paying way too much attention to a private conversation his best friend was having with a girl, but considering the extraordinary circumstances, could anyone blame him?</em>
</p><p><em>There was always the possibility, he supposed, that the reason Felix was acting like it wasn’t a big deal was because </em>he<em> didn’t have feelings for </em>her<em>.</em></p><p><em>It didn’t seem likely considering he couldn’t imagine Felix putting up with having his mouth stuffed with cake for any </em>other<em> reason— he’d never really cared about being polite or paying attention to other people’s feelings before, after all.</em></p><p><em>...Okay, so maybe that was a little </em>too<em> harsh, even when it was Felix he was talking about. </em></p><p>
  <em>Felix didn’t seem the type to worry about letting Lysithea down easy, though.</em>
</p><p><em>Well, whatever the reason, Sylvain was definitely happy to see that Felix was at the very least not </em>completely<em> writing off interactions with the opposite sex.</em></p><p>
  <em>Yes… Happy. That was definitely the word for it.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“So. Lysithea seems like she’s doing well.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain actually felt proud that he managed to make Felix jump. It wasn’t an easy task, especially after everything they had been through the past five years that made everyone… Well, a little more on edge, to put it mildly.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He didn’t manage to disguise his smug smile, obviously, because Felix rounded on him and gave him a death glare. Or maybe that was just Felix being Felix.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What are you going on about now?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Lysithea. You know, the woman you were talking with literally five minutes ago.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What about her?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Sylvain like he was some kind of Empire spy not so subtly drilling him for secrets.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I just said, she seems like she’s doing well,” he repeated. “I mean, everyone seems like they’re doing pretty well considering there’s a war going on, but the years have been especially kind to her. Have you talked to her at all since all of this started? I bet she missed you.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He expected Felix to roll his eyes, or shake his head, and probably say he was the same as he always was— maybe tell him if he wanted to waste his time flirting then he could spend it training instead so he didn’t get himself killed on the battlefield.</em>
</p><p><em>He definitely didn’t expect Felix to just tilt his head and </em>stare<em> at him.</em></p><p>
  <em>“...What? What are you looking at me for?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Nothing.” Felix shook his head. “Just wondering what you’re playing at.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Dunno what you mean by that, Felix.”</em>
</p><p><em>“I </em>mean<em>, you’re acting strange.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Strange how?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Why are you so intent on getting me and Lysithea together?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain stared at Felix.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix stared right back at him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain opened his mouth to ask what Felix was talking about, or maybe to deny it outright.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain was a good liar, but he was terrible at lying to Felix.</em>
</p><p><em>“Aren’t I allowed to want my best friend to be happy with a lovely lady?” he asked instead, because that at least made </em>sense<em>.</em></p><p>
  <em>It definitely made more sense than the weird, unpleasantly heavy feeling he got in his chest every time he saw Felix and Lysithea together— especially seeing them standing so close, Lysithea blushing, like he had just a few minutes ago.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Cut the crap, Sylvain.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ah, now this was more familiar territory. Felix annoyed with him, frowning at him sternly.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Since Ingrid had stayed behind in the Kingdom while he had gone to the Monastery in hopes of meeting up with his old classmates from the Alliance— and Felix, who had disappeared after Dimitri’s execution had been announced— it was nice to see there was at least one person willing to give him a talking to. It almost made him feel nostalgic— especially for the days where he had been treated as an empty-headed playboy who didn’t care about anything other than chasing skirts, instead of an important noble heir who had the entire fate of his territory resting on his shoulders.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“If you were trying to flirt with Lysithea yourself, that I could understand. But whenever you tried to get me to ‘follow in your footsteps’ before, you would always just try to get me to flirt with random women who didn’t mean anything. This sudden change of heart didn’t come out of nowhere. So: what’s going on?”</em>
</p><p><em>...damn. Sometimes Sylvain forgot how observant Felix could be even </em>off<em> the battlefield. It was hard to tell considering he wasn’t the most emotionally intelligent person, but just because he struggled with his own emotions didn’t mean he couldn’t figure out </em>other<em> people’s.</em></p><p>
  <em>They were both from Faerghus, after all. Sylvain understood full well how hard it could be to deal with what was going on in your own head. Other people were much easier to understand.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Nothing’s ‘going on’, Felix. I just want you to be happy, that’s all. You know, like a good friend.” Sylvain shook his head. “Maybe back then I would have just tried to get you to come out and flirt with girls with me, but I know that’s not the kind of guy you are. You’re more of a one woman kind of guy, right? So I just want to help you along as much as I can.”</em>
</p><p><em>He and Lysithea were an unusual match, in his opinion, but not a </em>bad<em> one. They were both stubborn to the point of pig headedness sometimes, but they were also both dedicated; Felix to the sword, Lysithea to her studies. And Sylvain definitely hadn’t missed the fact that Felix was eating the things she had made, even though the Felix </em>he<em> knew would have never eaten sweets voluntarily in his life; even when he was a kid he’d never liked them.</em></p><p>
  <em>He was even more glad that it meant one of his friends was actually going to get to end up with someone they cared about. Though if anyone was going to break free of Fodlan’s archaic marriage traditions, Felix would be the one to do it; he’d never been shy about telling people exactly what he thought of the nobility and how he would never get forced into anything like that.</em>
</p><p><em>Unlike Ingrid, who went along with her father’s wishes out of a combination of loyalty and guilt— and Sylvain himself, who both knew better than to think that his father cared about what </em>he<em> wanted, and knew that he would never have what he wanted anyway so it was just easier to go along with him.</em></p><p>
  <em>“So if you, you know, ever need some romantic tips or anything—”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Sylvain.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Hm? What’s up, Felix?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Shut up already.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And then Felix grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“So… We won.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain’s statement was met with silence.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If he didn’t know better, he would have assumed Felix had just fallen asleep. He was lying almost perfectly still, half on top of Sylvain with his face practically buried in Sylvain’s armpit— but he could tell from the way Felix was breathing that he was still wide awake.</em>
</p><p><em>Sylvain started casually stroking Felix’s hair with one hand, staring up at the ceiling and still listening to Felix’s breathing. After all of the… </em>Excitement<em> they’d had, they should have been so exhausted they passed right out, but Sylvain couldn’t sleep. The adrenaline from the battles and everything they had learned from them kept his heart beating at the pace of an excited bird even though he’d been lying in bed for hours, and his mind was racing just as fast.</em></p><p>
  <em>Felix mumbled something that he didn’t quite catch.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Hm?” He looked down at him, his hand pausing.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Did I tell you to stop?” Felix grumbled, which pulled a laugh from him as he started petting Felix’s hair again. “I asked… What you’re planning on doing now that all of this is over.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Hm…”</em>
</p><p><em>Sylvain had to think about that for a second. He hadn’t really considered that there would be a time when things were </em>over<em>— not any time soon, at least. They had been at war for five years, and yet it had taken less than </em>one<em> for the combined forces of Byleth and Claude to not only put a stop to the war, but uncover an ancient continental mystery and destroy an ancient conspiracy that, if the two of them were to be believed, had been the cause of basically everything bad that had happened in Fodlan for the entirety of recorded history.</em></p><p>
  <em>A real power couple, those two.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I guess we’ll be heading back home,” he said, going back to staring at the ceiling and wondering what exactly that meant now.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>After the stress the war had put on his father, he was probably going to end up inheriting a lot sooner than he’d expected. That solved some problems and created others, but either way, Edelgard’s bloody war meant there was no shortage of other people’s problems that needed fixing. What was left of Faerghus was in rough shape, and no one was quite certain what was going on— with the Empire and the Kingdom all but dissolved, who was going to step in and manage things?</em>
</p><p><em>At the very least, he could do </em>one<em> thing— go back home and make sure things were running smoothly in his own territory. Offer the people there some relief and do the best he could to get things back to something approaching normal.</em></p><p>
  <em>“After that… I’m not really sure.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His arm curled around Felix’s shoulders. It wasn’t quite protective, wasn’t quite possessive— somewhere in the middle.</em>
</p><p><em>He knew despite his father’s ailing health, or maybe </em>because<em> of it, he would be… </em>Encouraged<em> to get married and have an heir as quickly as possible. It didn’t matter that with Byleth and Claude at the helm of everything, and the truth about Crests and the Relics being a lot less pleasant than anyone had originally thought, the Crest-based system of inheritance would almost certainly be useless soon enough; his father wasn’t the sort of man to let that deter him.</em></p><p>
  <em>Once, he would have just gone along with it. There had been a time— not so long ago, in fact— where he thought that there was really no other option for him. His father had turned one son out in the cold for not having the good luck to be born with a Crest. He obviously cared more about his family legacy than his children. He would have just gone along with whatever arranged marriage his father decided was best for the future of the Gautier family line, unhappily popped out a few babies that he would secretly hope had no Crests, and try to go on with his life.</em>
</p><p><em>This… </em>Thing<em> he had with Felix had changed all of that.</em></p><p><em>They hadn’t really talked about it. They </em>certainly<em> hadn’t given it a name. Were they dating? Courting? Was this just stress relief, two close friends looking for mutual comfort in hard times, or was it something more?</em></p><p><em>Sylvain knew what he </em>wanted<em> it to be, but it was impossible to tell what Felix was thinking, and they had both carefully skirted around the topic with the excuse that the war was more important and needed their complete attention. Now that the war was over, though…</em></p><p>
  <em>He wondered how they would go about avoiding talking about things now. Or if they would finally be forced to address the situation.</em>
</p><p><em>For now, though, all he knew was that whatever this </em>thing <em>with Felix ended up being or whatever his father tried to convince him to do, he wasn’t going to just give in to his demands to marry some random noblewoman and start popping out babies.</em></p><p>
  <em>“What about you, Fe?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain knew he had a rough road ahead of him with his father and the future of Gautier territory and its people in the new order of Fodlan, but it didn’t compare to what Felix had waiting for him. They had never heard what had happened to Rodrigue, but the fact that Felix hadn’t heard from him for the entire latter half of the war made it obvious enough— which meant that unlike Sylvain, whose father was still alive, leadership of Fraldarius territory was his.</em>
</p><p><em>Sylvain also knew that it was exactly what Felix </em>didn’t<em> want. So he was curious what his actual plans were.</em></p><p>
  <em>“...Not sure yet,” Felix muttered, which was a bit disappointing, but Sylvain couldn’t say he was surprised. Their win was still fresh. The wounds of the war were still wide open.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>There would be plenty of time to think about such things in the morning— and during their long trek back to Faerghus.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>When it came to talking about feelings, Sylvain was pretty sure nobility in general were extraordinarily bad at it— if the nobles he knew were any indication— but Faerghus had a very special sort of emotional repression going on.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was the same kind of emotional repression that had made Felix’s father and Felix fall out over his brother’s death. The same kind that meant that Felix was the only one who realized something was very, very wrong with Dimitri before it was too late. The same kind that made Ingrid so resigned to giving up her dreams to please her father, because that was what a proper noble daughter would do.</em>
</p><p><em>And it was the kind that meant that, even months after the end of the war, he and Felix hadn’t so much as attempted to talk about the </em>thing<em> between them.</em></p><p><em>There was always the excuse that they had just been </em>busy<em>, of course. Which felt like a pretty damn good excuse to Sylvain. He wasn’t sure he had a full night’s sleep since they had gotten back home, except when he was so tired he passed out at his desk against his will. No time to rest, after all— there was a lot to be done.</em></p><p>
  <em>Felix had also gone home to Fraldarius territory, which meant he and Sylvain didn’t see much of each other. Felix also didn’t write much, unlike Ingrid who seemed to be writing him a letter every other day, constantly asking how things were going with his own rebuilding efforts and telling him about hers.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Even though she hadn’t been with them during the war— she had chosen to stay with the Kingdom— he was incredibly happy to see that she had made it out alive and well. Although from the tone and frequency of her letters, he guessed she was pretty lonely, and probably struggling with being back at home with her father after everything that had happened.</em>
</p><p><em>He could relate. And he bet Felix could relate in his own way as well, because from what he heard, he was rarely ever to be found in the Fraldarius estate. He had left his uncle in charge of the general estate and had taken off into the countryside, taking a more… </em>Hands on <em>approach to dealing with the bandits and other various problems still cropping up all over the former Kingdom. Which, if anything, probably kept him even </em>more<em> busy than Sylvain, who tried to do as much hands on work as possible but found himself cooped up in his study with a mountain of paperwork more often than not.</em></p><p>
  <em>And it was also why he was so surprised that Felix had sent him a letter saying he was coming to Gautier.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Well— ‘letter’ was pretty generous. It was a pretty bare minimum scrawl on a piece of scrap paper that had been brought to him by a confused and rather frantic messenger who had disappeared as quickly as he could, before Sylvain could even write a reply. But since Felix had told him he was coming it probably wasn’t a big deal.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He hadn’t given an exact date or time— or any date or time, really— so Sylvain had spent the two days since he’d gotten the letter trying and failing to get any work done while trying and similarly failing to figure out why Felix was coming to visit him all of a sudden, since the letter hadn’t given any indication.</em>
</p><p><em>It only surprised him a little bit when instead of showing up at a reasonable hour like a </em>normal<em> person, Felix showed up when he was getting ready for bed.</em></p><p><em>Sylvain made his way to the sitting room where one of his servants had told him Felix was waiting for him after fetching him from his chambers. He hadn’t bothered getting dressed; he didn’t feel the need to impress Felix, after all. Especially when </em>he<em> was the one who decided to show up unceremoniously in the middle of the night.</em></p><p><em>“You know, when you said you were coming to visit, I expected you to be getting me out of bed in the </em>morning<em>, not at night.”</em></p><p><em>“You weren’t asleep yet,” was Felix’s defense to that, and while Sylvain couldn’t say he was </em>wrong<em>, it also didn’t do much to disprove </em>his<em> point. But this was Felix, so he let the subject slide. Besides, he had more important questions, like:</em></p><p>
  <em>“Is everything alright, Felix? What’s so important that it couldn’t wait until morning?”</em>
</p><p><em>Felix might have been </em>more<em> dressed than him, but he certainly wasn’t </em>better<em> dressed; he was wearing worn-out riding clothes and haphazard armour, a sword at his side, not caring that he was dragging mud all over the family heirloom rug.</em></p><p>
  <em>Oh well. Sylvain didn’t care much either.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He hoped it wasn’t anything too serious. Things had been pretty peaceful— at least by comparison— since Byleth had been instituted as the new ruler of a unified Fodlan. Most of the problems were being caused by bandits and other petty criminals who had been driven to crime by the war, and that was getting better and better by the day. Or at least it was in Gautier territory.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He had even started negotiations with the Sreng, hoping to give them back the land they had lost to Faerghus so long ago in hopes that the animosity between them could stop— Claude would be proud of him, he was sure.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’m leaving, Sylvain.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain blinked in confusion.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I— what? Was it something I said? Felix, you only just got here.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix stared at him like he was stupid.</em>
</p><p><em>“I didn’t mean leaving </em>here<em>,” he said. “I meant leaving Faerghus— maybe even Fodlan.”</em></p><p>
  <em>Sylvain felt his heart leap up into his throat— and not in the way it usually did when he was with Felix.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I don’t understand.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I can’t stay here anymore, Sylvain.” Felix shook his head, looking— angry? No, frustrated was more like it. “Everywhere I look, everywhere I go, all I can see is… them.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Them…?”</em>
</p><p><em>“Don’t act stupid, Sylvain.” Sylvain let the insult go even though he was pretty sure it was </em>totally reasonable<em> for him to be confused. “I’m talking about… My father. Glenn. Even the b— </em>Dimitri<em>.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“What, you’re being haunted or something?”</em>
</p><p><em>“Not literally, you idiot.” Sylvain already knew that; he’d just needed to say </em>something<em>, anything, that might lighten up the conversation a little. And having Felix insulting him was comfortably familiar territory. “Just… Reminders. I’ll be visiting the estate and walk by my father’s empty office and half expect to hear him in there writing letters. Glenn’s sword is still hung up over the mantle. And what the boar did is… Everywhere. Have you been to Fhirdiad yet?”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Not since we got back from the Monastery.” There was no need. The palace in Fhirdiad was empty now, no longer the seat of power for the Kingdom.</em>
</p><p><em>“They’re putting up a </em>statue<em> of him. Like he was some kind of… Warrior-King instead of a deranged madman seeking revenge.”</em></p><p>
  <em>Sylvain winced at the thought of it. Part of him was glad that the people of Fodlan wouldn’t remember one of his closest friends as some kind of bloodthirsty tyrant, but at the same time…</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Well. The new Fodlan wasn’t that much different from the old Fodlan, he supposed. It was still early yet.</em>
</p><p><em>“Besides, you know I’ve never been suited for… All of </em>this<em>.”</em></p><p>
  <em>Felix gestured vaguely around him. Sylvain already knew what he was talking about, but looked around anyway, just to give him a moment to really… Think.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain hadn’t done anything with his family home since moving back in. He’d been too busy dealing with… Everything else. Which meant that it looked exactly the way it had for as long as Sylvain could remember, and had probably looked that way since well before he was born. Even his father’s portrait was still hanging over the mantle, where it was technically supposed to stay until Sylvain officially took over as the new head of the Gautier family.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Even though he knew that wasn’t really what he meant, it definitely wasn’t the kind of place Sylvain could picture Felix feeling at home.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“So… I’m leaving.”</em>
</p><p><em>“Where are you </em>going<em>?” Sylvain asked, incredulous, because even though he knew </em>why<em>, he still couldn’t understand Felix just— picking up and </em>leaving<em>.</em></p><p>
  <em>“I don’t know. Away. There’s a lot of work out there for a skilled mercenary right now.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“C’mon, Felix— you can’t be serious.” Sylvain put his hand to his forehead, trying to ward off the headache that was starting to form. “Look, I know the whole noble thing isn’t what you want but just— taking off to become a sellsword? You know how crazy that sounds, right?”</em>
</p><p><em>“Maybe to </em>you<em>,” Felix scoffed, crossing his arms and glaring at him. “But that’s because you and Ingrid are exactly the same— you’ve let your fathers make you believe you </em>have<em> to do this.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Felix, I’m not here because my father is holding me at the end of a sword— if I was, I would already be married and popping out kids.”</em>
</p><p><em>“You say that, but isn’t that just a concession you’ve made so you </em>feel<em> like you actually have a say in it?”</em></p><p><em>No, it wasn’t. Sylvain </em>knew<em> it wasn’t. He might have hated a lot of things about noble society, but he knew that this was somewhere he was able to make a real difference and do the kind of good he wanted to do. And yet he couldn’t help but feel a sting of shame when Felix said it.</em></p><p>
  <em>“Come with me, Syl.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain wasn’t sure which shocked him more— the request, or hearing Felix use the nickname he hadn’t used since they were little kids.</em>
</p><p><em>“You don’t need to resign yourself to this so you feel like you’re making a difference,” he continued, like he could read Sylvain’s mind— which, since it seemed like he had given this a </em>lot<em> of thought, probably wasn’t that far from the truth.</em></p><p><em>There weren’t many people in the world who knew him better than Felix knew him. Sylvain wasn’t sure </em>anyone<em> did— himself included.</em></p><p>
  <em>“Fe…”</em>
</p><p><em>“I’m serious. We can just— leave. Be out of here by morning. We’ll never have to worry about anyone forcing us to do anything ever again. We can help people, </em>real<em> people, not just numbers on a piece of paper.”</em></p><p><em>“Those numbers on a piece of paper </em>are<em> real people, Felix— real people who need food and clothes and a roof over their head, not just someone swinging a sword at some bandits.”</em></p><p>
  <em>Slowly, he found his dumbfounded confusion turning to annoyance, which was creeping its way into anger. Now that he knew Felix was one hundred percent completely serious about just— picking up and taking off into the night, he couldn’t help it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Part of him had been hoping that Felix was coming so they could have a real, genuine talk about what was going on between them. This, though… He knew he should have seen it coming, but it was the last thing he’d been expecting.</em>
</p><p><em>“I get it. I really do, Felix. Do you think I like listening to my father ramble on about me ‘carrying on the family line’ or constantly being reminded of my dead brother? But just leaving like that…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t do that. Not without knowing with absolute certainty that I was leaving Gautier territory in the hands of someone who would do just as much good with it as I would. And even then… It wouldn’t feel </em>right<em>, Felix. Faerghus might be a nightmare sometime, but it’s my home… And it’s your home, too.”</em></p><p>
  <em>Talking Felix out of something was a fool’s errand, and Sylvain knew it. But despite how perceptive he could be, he knew Felix’s judgement could often be clouded by hate and anger— just like it was right now.</em>
</p><p><em>He had to </em>try<em>.</em></p><p>
  <em>Felix, though, didn’t say anything. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at him anymore— with his arms still folded, he was looking away, eyes closed like he was thinking hard about something.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Had something Sylvain said managed to get through to him? He hoped so. Even if he hadn’t completely talked him out of it, at the very least making him second guess himself was a good first step.</em>
</p><p><em>“Look, Fe… It’s late.” Sylvain didn’t </em>mean<em> to yawn as he said that, but as soon as he started thinking about the time, he couldn’t stop himself. “Why don’t you just… Sleep on it? We can talk about this more in the morning—”</em></p><p><em>“I </em>have<em> slept on it, Sylvain.”</em></p><p><em>It almost startled him, how even and cool Felix’s voice was. Not that Felix was one to blow up in anger— at least not in serious anger. He would yell at him and tell him to shut up, but that was always more annoyance than anything, the sort of thing Sylvain would try to provoke him into deliberately just to be an ass and because he liked when he got anything more than a lukewarm reaction from Felix about… Well, </em>anything<em>.</em></p><p><em>But when Felix was </em>really<em> angry? When he was well past the point of hot-tempered annoyance and into that deep, genuine anger that he’d once reserved for Dimitri, and his father, and everyone who had ever tried to cast him in his brother’s shadow?</em></p><p>That<em> was when his voice got as smooth and cold as the dangerous invisible ice that plagued every Faerghusian.</em></p><p><em>“Do you think I just… Decided this on a whim? That deciding to leave behind everything I’ve ever known was an </em>easy<em> choice for me to make?”</em></p><p>
  <em>Felix hated making eye contact when he talked, but he was staring directly at Sylvain with an icy cold glare.</em>
</p><p><em>“I made up my mind to do this the day I left Faerghus to go to the Monastery and meet up with Claude in the first place. The only reason I came back here at all was because of </em>you<em>.” Felix snorted. “It was a stupid idea. I can see that now.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Felix—”</em>
</p><p><em>“You can’t talk me out of it,” Felix said with a weighty finality that made Sylvain realize he was telling the absolute truth. “I was hoping I would be able to talk </em>you<em> out of spending the rest of your life stuck here, but I can also see </em>that<em> was a mistake.”</em></p><p><em>That anger from earlier started bubbling up in Sylvain’s chest, creating an unpleasant weight in his lungs right alongside the one in his stomach. If it hadn’t been for that— if it hadn’t been for how Felix had decided to spring this on him in the dead of night when he hadn’t slept properly in months, standing in his childhood home that had always felt more like a prison asking him to run away with him even when he </em>knew<em> he couldn’t, when Sylvain didn’t even know where the two of them stood with each other anymore— maybe he wouldn’t have said something so monumentally stupid.</em></p><p>
  <em>But with all of those things piled on top of him at once, Sylvain couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Not all of us are being chased by ghosts, Felix. Some of us actually know how to deal with our feelings without running away from them.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain didn’t even know when Felix had gotten close enough to be able to slap him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was a good, clean hit, leaving Sylvain reeling and his cheek burning. The feeling was almost familiar, but it hurt far worse than all of his ex-girlfriends slapping him across the face combined, and not just because Felix was stronger than any of them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was because that was probably going to be the last thing he ever said to Felix.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>As Felix turned to leave, a thousand thoughts went through Sylvain’s mind. What was going to happen to him? How was he going to survive out there on his own?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Would going with him really be such a terrible idea?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But no matter how many of those thoughts passed through his mind, none of them made their way to his mouth. He had said his piece, and now he had to leave with it. So he just stood there, watching Felix heading for the door— potentially the last time he would ever see him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And it was only after he heard the door slam that he found enough of a voice to be able to say, “...Goodbye, Felix.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“...And that’s the long and short of it, really.”</p><p>Sylvain tried to keep his voice nice and casual even though it felt like a thousand insects were crawling underneath his skin, and he was pretty sure he was about to throw up the nice dinner and even nicer wine Lysithea had been… Well, <em>nice</em> enough to give him.</p><p>He hadn’t talked about it. Not with anyone. Not with Ingrid, who treated talking about Felix the same way she treated talking about Dimitri— like something to be approached very carefully like it would upset him too much. And judging by the look on Lysithea’s face, not to mention how confused she was by everything that had been going on since he had arrived, Felix had definitely not mentioned any of it to her either.</p><p>It would almost be funny if it wasn’t completely and utterly distressing.</p><p>“I… I had no idea.”</p><p>Lysithea had her arms wrapped tightly around herself, her eyes the size of saucers. Sylvain wanted to say something comforting, but he couldn’t think of anything— not the least because he didn’t really know how to deal with this situation, or what Lysithea might be feeling.</p><p>After all, he’d just told her in no uncertain terms that he and her husband had been a <em>thing</em> at one point— and it didn’t take a genius as smart as Lysithea to realize that Sylvain still had feelings for him, even if it wasn’t mutual.</p><p>“I said things I regret that night,” Sylvain admitted, even if that was massively under exaggerating things— he’d been kept awake at night time and time again wondering what might have happened that night if things had gone just a <em>bit</em> differently. “Felix was right to be angry with me. I really did just want to make sure he was okay, but… I think me showing up and acting like I had any right to track him down and show up in his home unannounced just made everything worse.”</p><p>“And those comments I made about the two of you certainly couldn’t have helped,” Lysithea said, shaking her head.</p><p>“You couldn’t have known.” After all, they’d kept it a secret— or as close to a secret as it could be when even they didn’t know what was going on.</p><p>They lapsed back into silence, Lysithea staring at the floor contemplatively while Sylvain contemplated how quickly he could pack his things and be out of there. After all, he’d done nothing but screw up Lysithea and Felix’s perfectly idyllic little life just because he felt bad about an argument he and Felix had had years ago— the least he could do was make a quiet and graceful exit before he made things any worse.</p><p>Just when he was starting to wonder if he should ask Lysithea if the little village had an inn or if he would have to wait until he was a little further down the road to get a chance to rest, Lysithea looked back up at him with a steely sort of determination.</p><p>“I’m glad you told me all of this, Sylvain,” she said, which threw him for a loop— not that she said it, since it sounded like the usual sort of platitudes someone said when you told them something deeply personal and upsetting, but the genuine way in which she said it. “I had no idea Felix was suffering like that all this time.”</p><p>“Suffering? I doubt it.”</p><p>After all, Felix wasn’t like him— wasn’t the sort of person to let himself get dragged down by the past. That was what their entire disagreement had been about in the first place, right?</p><p>Felix wanted to put their shared history behind him, while Sylvain couldn’t help but stay tangled up in it, painful as it might be. After a few years of reflection, Sylvain had realized that neither of their options was wrong— it was just two different paths that happened to lead them away from each other.</p><p>“Maybe it is too strong of a word,” Lysithea agreed. “But he’s most certainly missed you, Sylvain. Though I can see now why he never wanted to talk about you…”</p><p>Another wince. Part of him hoped Lysithea was right, that Felix did still care about him and all of this could be fixed by an apology and some time.</p><p>He wasn’t about to hold his breath, though.</p><p>“I think this presents a real opportunity, though.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>He had seen that look in Lysithea’s eyes before. Most often he remembered seeing it at the war table.</p><p>In the current context, it sent a chill up his spine.</p><p>“Sylvain, I think you should go and talk to Felix. As soon as possible. Right now, in fact.”</p><p>Sylvain blinked.</p><p>Lysithea looked at him with that sparkle in her eyes.</p><p>She was being completely and utterly serious.</p><p>“Uh, I’m— not sure sure that’s a good idea, Lysithea. I like all my limbs right where they are, thanks.”</p><p>“Felix won’t get <em>violent</em> with you,” she said with a roll of her eyes, and Sylvain almost replied that he wasn’t being literal before realizing that yes, he was, and he was absolutely not sure about what she was saying in the slightest.</p><p>Felix didn’t commit acts of random violence. Felix committed very <em>purposeful</em> and <em>targeted</em> acts of violence, with malice aforethought.</p><p>“Felix has calmed down a lot in the past few years,” Lysithea continued, either not noticing or not caring about Sylvain’s discomfort with the suggestion. “And I think you’re right that you casually showing up and acting like nothing was wrong was quite upsetting for him. That’s why he was doing so well right up until we started joking about the two of you being a couple. Your apology earlier made things easier for him, but hearing the two of us make casual fun about something like that set him off.”</p><p>Sylvain couldn’t exactly argue with her about that; it was exactly the thought he’d had. But at the same time…</p><p>“I’m… Not exactly good at talking about that sort of thing, Lysithea. I have a feeling I would just make things worse.”</p><p>“I highly doubt you could make things any worse than they already are.”</p><p>“Wow, not pulling any punches tonight, huh?”</p><p>“I’m serious, Sylvain.”</p><p>Lysithea leaned across the table, reaching for his hands so she could clasp them in her own. It was… Weird, and he had a feeling it was primarily motivated by the wine that still had his own head feeling floaty and had probably contributed to how willing he was to tell her that story, but it wasn’t unpleasant.</p><p>“You and Felix clearly miss each other. This is your chance to fix things.”</p><p>“I already apologized for what I said, Lysithea. I honestly think that’s about as fixed as things are going to get. I’m sure if I just give Felix some space…”</p><p>“Do you really <em>want</em> things to end there, though?”</p><p>Lysithea squeezed both of his hands. There was a small smile on her face, but it wasn’t a pleasant one— just like the way she was looking at him like a chess piece wasn’t all that pleasant, either.</p><p>“...I think you’ve lost me.”</p><p>“You love Felix, don’t you?”</p><p>Sylvain felt his heart jump up into his throat.</p><p>His mouth flapped open and closed uselessly, while Lysithea continued as though she hadn’t just completely pulled the rug out from under him.</p><p>“Like I said, we always suspected that was the case. Some people tried to argue that you only joined because of Professor Byleth, but we all knew better. After all, you hardly paid the Professor any attention, but you were constantly running around after Felix trying to get his attention.”</p><p>“Come on, Lysithea… You don’t have to make me sound so desperate.” Sylvain frowned at her, trying to school his face into an overdramatic pout that would make the situation less serious, but he had a feeling he failed because he probably <em>looked</em> just about as nauseous as he <em>felt</em>. “Besides, all of that was a long time ago. I’ve moved on. So has Felix, obviously. I mean, he <em>married</em> you. He chose you, right? And that’s the end of that.”</p><p>Did he still care about Felix? Of course. He would care about Felix until the day he died. But they had both had to move on with their lives, take their separate paths, and he was okay with that now. He was happy with Ingrid. They were in love, just like Felix and Lysithea were in love.</p><p>Just because he still loved Felix, just like he had <em>always</em> loved Felix even if he’d never been able to say that, didn’t mean he had any right to mess with what the two of them had.</p><p>“...it doesn’t have to be.”</p><p>He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he almost missed what she had said— and then immediately proceeded to choke on his own tongue.</p><p>“I— I don’t—”</p><p>“Listen, Sylvain. I love Felix. And I care about you as any good friend should. I want both of you to be happy. And if what you’ve told me is true, then the two of you reconciling and figuring out what is going on between the two of you is key to that.”</p><p>“Lysithea, you’re Felix’s <em>wife</em>. What are you saying…?”</p><p>“Well, I’m certainly not going to give him <em>up</em> to you, if that’s what you’re implying.” She frowned at him and narrowed her eyebrows, finally releasing his hands so she could cross her arms. It would have been an adorable pose and expression if he wasn’t too busy trying to wrap his mind around what she was saying to think about anything like that.</p><p>And that was <em>exactly</em> what he had been implying, so he had to admit— he was eager to hear what her explanation was.</p><p>“I simply feel like it would be beneficial for both you and Felix to get your feelings out in the open. You two are both <em>legendarily</em> bad with things like that. I’m certain it would help you both in the long run.” And that little smile and twinkle in her eye were back, suddenly. “And all the better if I can help you two along the way.”</p><p>Sylvain still had no idea what she was suggesting; did she want him to confess his love to Felix? Did she want the two of them to just have some closure about what had happened between them?</p><p>It still sounded like a terrible idea to him, but he had to admit… It was tempting in a way he hadn’t expected.</p><p>Oh well. What was the worst that could happen? He’d already pissed Felix off enough to send him storming out of his own house twice, once in the middle of dinner. Really, he couldn’t screw things up <em>more</em> even if he tried. And Lysithea looked really enthusiastic about the prospect.</p><p>So fuck it.</p><p>“Alright. So where do you think Felix has gone, then?” He saw Lysithea light up like he’d just handed her a birthday present, but before he could completely give himself over… “And are you <em>sure</em> you’re okay with this? It’s all well and good to say you want Felix to be happy, but this is a pretty extraordinary situation.”</p><p>He wasn’t even convinced it <em>would</em> make Felix happy, but he wasn’t going to argue with her.</p><p>He was surprised when Lysithea’s expression changed drastically. She was still smiling— but it was a gentler smile, one that looked like it might have been more at home on Marianne’s face than her own, because it was also slightly sad.</p><p>“Of course. I wouldn’t have suggested it if I wasn’t okay with it,” she said, and he tried to see if she was lying, but he couldn’t tell— maybe he just didn’t know Lysithea well enough, or maybe she was good at hiding it, even if her face told him she was feeling more than just a strange sense of excitement. “Besides, you say he chose me— but he only chose me because he thought <em>you</em> didn’t want him. It’s about time we clear up that misconception, don’t you think?”</p><p>And she didn’t say anything else before heading for the front door, only looking back to make sure he was following.</p><p>Of course Sylvain followed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t like Felix <em>enjoyed</em> chopping wood. It was just the fact that it gave him something to do where his brain wasn’t screaming at him constantly.</p>
<p>He had hung up his sword— literally— before he and Lysithea had even gotten married. It was symbolic of the fact that he was willing to give up his wandering mercenary lifestyle for her, of course. But it was also because he didn’t have the time or luxury to spend his time constantly training, especially when he no longer needed to do so in order to survive. He could better expend his energy fixing things around the house or helping her run the bakery, and now he had to worry about taking care of Evangeline.</p>
<p>It was times like these that he missed training, though— not only for the physical fitness, but also because the repetitive motions it took to master a step completely let his mind get drawn into the task at hand and let him forget about everything else going on around him. It had been a tactic he had employed since Glenn’s death and it had served him well through his school years, through the war, and right up to the point where he was a married man with a baby living in a friendly village in the middle of nowhere where even the most desperate bandit wouldn’t bother going and he had absolutely no use for a sword any longer.</p>
<p>Chopping wood really didn’t have the same effect, but it gave his body something to do and his mind something to focus on other than the whirlwind of emotions he had no interest in addressing at the moment, so it… Worked. More or less.</p>
<p>And it probably would have <em>kept</em> working if out of the corner of his eye he didn’t see two people walking towards him in the darkness.</p>
<p>Immediately, he was set completely on edge, in the split second it took for his brain to catch up with his body— years of conditioning from the war and then his mercenary work told him that people coming at him in the dark meant someone was coming to kill him, and the only thing he had at hand was a woodcutter’s axe, which wasn’t the <em>worst</em> weapon but also wasn’t going to give him any kind of advantage.</p>
<p>Of course, when his brain caught up with his instincts, he realized that the people walking towards him from the house were Sylvain and Lysithea. Not that that made anything necessarily <em>better</em>, but at least he wasn’t in any <em>physical</em> danger. At least, not that he <em>knew</em> about.</p>
<p>Unlike when Lysithea had approached him earlier that day, he actually stopped chopping wood when he saw them coming, wiping sweat from his forehead as he leaned against his axe where it was planted firmly in the chopping block. Trying to ignore them wasn’t going to do any good. Better to nip this in the bud as quickly and as cleanly as possible so Sylvain could go home and their lives could all go back to normal.</p>
<p>The more he told himself that, the more he could <em>almost</em> believe it.</p>
<p>“Chopping wood in the dark while drunk isn’t the safest pastime, Felix,” Sylvain called out from a good fifteen feet away, like he was afraid Felix was going to turn the axe on him if he got too close.</p>
<p>He was still considering that option, depending on what Sylvain had to say— but with Lysithea looking, he was reserving it for a last resort.</p>
<p>“I’m not drunk,” Felix replied. “If <em>you</em> are, you’ve lost your touch.”</p>
<p>“I’m <em>pleasantly buzzed</em>,” Sylvain insisted. Felix rolled his eyes.</p>
<p>“What do you want?” Felix asked, wanting to skip straight to the point and not caring if Lysithea was going to lecture him for being <em>rude</em> or whatever nonsense she came up with.</p>
<p>“I think we should talk,” Sylvain said, which was not the answer he was expecting.</p>
<p>Felix tilted his head to peer around Sylvain at where Lysithea was standing not much farther away, then looked back at Sylvain and raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure he could even see his face properly in the dark, but since Sylvain looked properly bashful, he was guessing that he could.</p>
<p>“I… Told her everything, Felix,” Sylvain admitted, and Felix felt his blood run cold.</p>
<p>“I think the two of you having a chat is long overdue, based on what Sylvain told me,” Lysithea interjected before Felix could even start to think of the long, creative chain of curse words he wanted to spit at his best friend— no, <em>former</em> best friend, damn him. “Honestly, I wish you would have told me earlier, Felix. We could have settled this confusion much quicker.”</p>
<p>“What’s there to be confused about?” he asked, the venom rising in his voice. “If Sylvain told you the <em>truth</em>,” and he felt smug about the way Sylvain winced out of the corner of his eye, “then you would know that everything was pretty cut and dry.”</p>
<p>“There’s nothing ‘cut and dry’ about a lifelong friendship being soiled by something as petty as a difference of opinion,” Lysithea insisted.</p>
<p>It wasn’t often that Felix was genuinely angry with Lysithea. In fact, he wasn’t sure he could remember a time before Sylvain had shown up. He got annoyed, certainly. But <em>angry</em>?</p>
<p>Even that thought couldn’t stop him from turning on Lysithea and spitting, “<em>Petty</em>? A ‘difference of opinion’? How badly did Sylvain twist the story to make you take <em>his</em> side?”</p>
<p>“I’m not <em>choosing sides</em>, and Sylvain told me the absolute truth. Right, Sylvain?”</p>
<p>“I, uh— I mean, I probably didn’t remember all the details exactly right, but—”</p>
<p>“See?” Lysithea said, as if Sylvain’s nervous babble really meant anything. “I think you’re <em>both</em> being equally ridiculous and you <em>both</em> need a good kick in the rear to see that. That’s why I told him to come talk to you, Felix. And the two of you are going to <em>talk</em>.”</p>
<p>Lysithea crossed her arms and planted her feet firmly as if to say ‘and that’s that’. Felix let out a frustrated half-growl from the back of his throat.</p>
<p>“You don’t get it, do you? This wasn’t some petty disagreement about <em>cakes</em> or <em>training </em>or whatever other stupid things we always argued about in school— this was about me watching my best friend throw his Goddess-damned life away for some stupid country that wouldn’t give a damn if he died unless it was on the battlefield so they could call it ‘a good death’.”</p>
<p>“And it was about <em>me</em> watching <em>my</em> best friend run off into the dead of night to get himself killed by bandits and bleed out in a ditch somewhere!”</p>
<p>Sylvain had been standing awkwardly between them, watching them bicker, but even in the dim light from the distant house and the clear night sky over head Felix could see his expression harden and become serious.</p>
<p>He stared Sylvain right in the face. Sylvain glared at him. He glared back. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lysithea open her mouth to say something, but wisely closed it again and simply… Watched, like she was waiting to see what they would do.</p>
<p>It was Sylvain who broke first— but only because his hard glare turning into one of the most genuinely <em>sad</em> expressions Felix had ever seen on his face in the entirety of his <em>life</em>.</p>
<p>“Felix, I thought I was going to lose you. We had just won a war together and here you were, talking about running off back into danger, where I <em>couldn’t follow you</em>.”</p>
<p>“You could have <em>come with me.</em>”</p>
<p>“You <em>know</em> I couldn’t.” Sylvain shook his head. “You said it yourself, you knew that from the start. No matter how much of a nightmare our childhoods might have been, Felix, I could never just… Run off like that, and abandon everything.”</p>
<p>Felix hung his head. He had known that was true. It hadn’t stopped him from trying, because he’d <em>had</em> to.</p>
<p>“I had to know whether you would be willing to keep our promise.”</p>
<p>It was a low blow, Felix knew. But it was true all the same.</p>
<p>“And it looks like we both broke it, huh?”</p>
<p>Okay. He deserved that. And it wasn’t any less true. It stung, but he had to give it to Sylvain— at least he was fighting fair.</p>
<p>“I said things that night that I still regret. I said things I didn’t mean. I was just… Scared, Felix. And I know I’ve already apologized but I will apologize as many times as it takes for you to believe me.”</p>
<p>“I believed you the first time,” Felix said. “It just didn’t change anything.”</p>
<p>“I know.” Sylvain sighed and put his hand to his forehead. “We really made a mess of everything, huh?”</p>
<p>Felix was inclined to say ‘speak for yourself’ or something similar, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Not when he knew he was every bit as guilty as Sylvain.</p>
<p>He could feel the anger draining out of him— slowly but surely. Maybe it was the fact that he’d been holding onto it for so long, or maybe it was just the fact that he was… <em>Tired</em>.</p>
<p>Tired of having to pretend that he was well and truly over everything that had happened between them, and having Sylvain turn up didn’t change anything.</p>
<p>If they’d had this conversation back then, he knew there were a lot of things he would have said. But things were… <em>Different </em>now.</p>
<p>His wife was standing just a few feet away from the man he had been in love with since he was too young to understand what the word <em>love</em> even meant, for one.</p>
<p>Lysithea came closer until she could put her hand comfortingly on his arm. She must have realized the truth. If Sylvain really had told her everything and not left out any… <em>Details</em>, then she had to know how he had really felt about him.</p>
<p>How he still felt about him, even though just thinking that while Lysithea— the woman he adored and absolutely, completely did not deserve— was standing <em>right there</em> and <em>touching him </em>made him feel physically sick to his stomach.</p>
<p>“Felix…”</p>
<p>The hand that was on his arm came up to gently rest on his cheek instead, encouraging him to turn his face towards Lysithea. A little more forceful guidance had him dipping his head down so he could press his forehead against hers, somehow even more intimate than a kiss, her other hand coming up to cup his jaw as well so she was holding his face gently in her hands.</p>
<p>“It’s okay,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear her even with how close she was. “Like I said, Sylvain told me everything. I know what you’re thinking, but… It’s okay. You can say it.”</p>
<p>He suddenly pulled back like Lysithea had delivered a Thoron directly to him.</p>
<p>“What are you—”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry,” she said, not surprised at all by his sudden physical reaction. “Like I told Sylvain, I have no intentions of just giving you up. But I would be amenable to… <em>Sharing</em>. If that would make you happy, of course.”</p>
<p>Normally, Felix hated talk like that. It was stupid and self-sacrificial. But the glimmer in Lysithea’s eyes told him that she was anything but reluctant to follow through on her offer, even if he couldn’t understand <em>why</em>.</p>
<p>And besides— he was too distracted reeling from what she had just said and the implications of it to think about it too much.</p>
<p>When he looked at Sylvain, trying to figure out if <em>he</em> had put her up to this somehow, all he was met with was someone who looked every bit as confused and surprised as he felt.</p>
<p>Alright then. Fine. They had been dancing around this for long enough, and he was frankly tired of it anyway. Lysithea had told him it was okay. She even seemed… <em>Excited</em> by the prospect, somehow.</p>
<p>Who was he to say no?</p>
<p>He could have said a lot of things, and there were probably a lot of things he was going to have to say later, but all he could think of in that moment was, “Fuck it.”</p>
<p>He took a few steps forward, grabbed Sylvain by the front of his shirt, and pulled him into a searing kiss.</p>
<p>It wasn’t— magical. It wasn’t even that good of a kiss, if he was being honest. Sylvain was too surprised to contribute much, and he was too aggressive in his haste. But still it felt… Right, even with the bumps in the road, and when Sylvain’s hands came to his shoulders not to push him away but to pull him closer it took everything he had not to just melt into the touch he hadn’t realized he’d been missing for <em>years</em>.</p>
<p>When he and Sylvain pulled apart— because they still needed to <em>breathe</em>, after all— they just stood there staring at each other, Felix admiring how red Sylvain’s face looked even in the darkness, until Lysithea cleared her throat and reminded them they weren’t alone.</p>
<p>(Felix was slightly less embarrassed by the way he jumped when Sylvain did it, too. Only slightly, though.)</p>
<p>“We should take this inside, don’t you think?” she suggested gently, like she was talking to a couple of children who didn’t know any better—</p>
<p>But Felix couldn’t argue with her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If you asked anyone involved how they had gotten to this point, none of them would have the same answer, or probably any answer at all.</p>
<p>Still, none of them were going to complain. In fact, none of them really had the mental faculties to be doing much complaining, or much of anything aside from focusing completely on what was going on around them.</p>
<p>Lysithea had gently ushered a very distracted and flabbergasted Sylvain and Felix inside as soon as they could detach their lips from each other, and while the smarter option might have been for all of them to brew a nice cup of tea and have a long emotional chat— or go to bed to sleep off the light buzz they all still had which was probably only partially alcohol and mostly adrenaline— it had turned quickly from there.</p>
<p>Namely as soon as Lysithea had not-so-innocently suggested that they take things upstairs once they had all managed to stumble their way into the house.</p>
<p>From there, things were… A blur. A blur of hands and clothes and mouths and skin that had eventually ended up in the guest room Lysithea had made up for Sylvain, since Evangeline was asleep in her crib in Felix and Lysithea’s bedroom.</p>
<p>By the time anyone really caught up to what was going on, everyone had lost at least half of their clothes, and it was getting hard to keep track of whose limbs were where.</p>
<p>“Hold on, hold on.” Felix broke away from the very impressive hickey he was sucking into Sylvain’s clavicle, which made Sylvain whine in the back of his throat. “Ingrid…?”</p>
<p>“You’re asking this <em>now</em>?” Lysithea asked incredulously from behind him where she was struggling to get out of her leggings without completely untangling herself from the two of them.</p>
<p>“Fine with it,” Sylvain answered breathlessly, his eyes flicking around like they had absolutely no idea where to go— there were just too many good options. He swallowed hard and tried again for a complete sentence, but all that came out was, “Dorothea.”</p>
<p>That was a good enough answer for Felix, who happily went back to leaving a trail of bites and bruises across Sylvain’s neck and chest that would have been pretty hard to explain to Sylvain’s wife otherwise.</p>
<p>Lysithea had finally managed to squirm out of everything, and was starting to tug Felix’s pants and smalls from his hips while he was otherwise too distracted kissing his way down Sylvain’s chest to do so himself.</p>
<p>Sylvain was probably the <em>least</em> active of the three, unable to do much but lie there and stare in awe at the two of them and worry too much about where he was putting his hands, and also wonder whether Felix had stabbed him and this was all some kind of injury-induced fever dream.</p>
<p>He might have been the most experienced out of the three of them— experience that was pretty grossly exaggerated anyway— but having a threesome with a married couple, especially when one person in that couple was his best friend and first love, was pretty firmly outside of his wheelhouse.</p>
<p>A lack of experience certainly wasn’t stopping Felix, though— his kisses and bites were moving lower as he hooked his fingers into Sylvain’s trousers and tugged them down with the same sort of single-minded aggressiveness he had towards just about everything he did.</p>
<p>There was another bit of squirming around and some cursing on Felix’s parts as he tried to kick his own pants and smalls off while also pulling Sylvain’s off, but soon they were all naked.</p>
<p>Sylvain was harder than he had ever been in his life, and Felix was practically drooling over his cock, staring at it like a starving man would stare at a feast. Lysithea couldn’t help but admire it as well, her hand casually rubbing up and down Felix’s back as she positioned herself sitting next to him while he slid down the bed to lie on his stomach with his face in Sylvain’s crotch.</p>
<p>It was clear enough that Felix didn’t know what he was doing, but that only turned Sylvain on <em>more</em>, seeing the determined look of concentration on Felix’s face and realizing he was the first man Felix had ever been with.</p>
<p>Lysithea crawled up the bed, dragging her hand up Felix’s back— digging her nails in just enough to leave pretty red trails behind— and burying her fingers in Felix’s long hair. Sylvain’s mouth went dry when Felix moaned in response; it made <em>him</em> want to pull Felix’s hair, and Lysithea must have read his mind, because she reached for Sylvain’s hand and put it on the back of his head.</p>
<p>Sylvain let out a shuddering breath when Felix took him in hand and gave him a few firm strokes before leaning in and licking a stripe up his cock, then wrapping his lips around the head, which was almost enough to make him cum embarrassingly early— especially when Felix moaned again, this time with his cock in his mouth, when he pulled on his hair the same way Lysithea did.</p>
<p>“Doesn’t he look good like this?” Lysithea leaned against Sylvain, resting her chin on his shoulder so they could both watch Felix from the same perspective.</p>
<p>Sylvain nodded— he didn’t trust himself to actually speak, afraid he would end up saying something stupid, especially when he was caught between the sensations of Felix suckling at the head of his cock and Lysithea’s breasts pressing against him.</p>
<p>Sylvain <em>whined</em> in the back of his throat when Felix started bobbing his head, only able to take the first few inches at first but slowly working his way further down, his hand rhythmically stroking everything he couldn’t fit into his mouth. It was <em>far</em> from his first blowjob, but Sylvain felt like an overwhelmed virgin all the same— especially when he saw that Felix was thrusting his hips, looking for friction against the bed sheets because he was that turned on by sucking him off.</p>
<p>Lysithea was content at first to just watch. She’d never thought about her husband pleasuring another man, even though she knew based on Bernadetta’s writing that it was a… <em>Popular</em> subject with some women, but seeing it for herself made her understand. Felix looked absolutely debauched, panting and salivating over Sylvain’s cock.</p>
<p>But she wasn’t one to be left out of the fun for long, and she felt herself getting wet watching Felix give a sloppy but enthusiastic blowjob with the kind of concentration he usually devoted to perfecting a new sword technique.</p>
<p>She slipped her hand between her legs, running her fingers along her folds to work slowly up to touching her throbbing clit as she decided to add another hickey to the collection Sylvain was already sporting courtesy of Felix, latching on to his shoulder and sucking until his flushed skin was an even prettier red that would start fading into purple before long.</p>
<p>Sylvain turned his head towards her and let out another throaty noise, the hand that wasn’t pulling on Felix’s hair to guide him in his <em>oral education</em> reaching over to squeeze her thigh, then sliding between her legs alongside her own.</p>
<p>Lysithea <em>whined</em> at the way Sylvain expertly ran his fingers along her cunt, wetting them with her slick so he could rub her clit in perfect little circles that were only made better by the rough calluses on his fingers from years of weapon wielding.</p>
<p>It wasn’t enough, though; her pussy <em>throbbed</em> as she slicked all over Sylvain’s hand, but she needed <em>more</em>, and even thrusting her hips so she was basically humping his hand wasn’t enough.</p>
<p>“Hey, hey. C’mere.”</p>
<p>Sylvain’s voice was hoarse and thick, and he swallowed heavily as he reached out to put an arm around Lysithea and guide her towards him. He shimmied a bit further down the bed— pulling Felix off his cock despite how much he did not want to so he wouldn’t choke— and guided Lysithea to kneel over his face now that he was lying flat rather than partially sitting up.</p>
<p>Lysithea didn’t need any more guidance than that; even without Sylvain’s hand palming her ass and guiding her forward she was already lowering herself to his mouth.</p>
<p>It turned out, between his hands and his mouth, Sylvain hadn’t been kidding about his experience with women. Lysithea could now vouch for it <em>quite officially</em>.</p>
<p>Sylvain’s tongue lapped at her folds, licking up her juices and moaning like they were the most delicious thing he had ever tasted— although the sounds she could hear behind her of Felix enthusiastically choking himself on Sylvain’s cock might have helped.</p>
<p>Sylvain wanted to take things slow, though, licking leisurely around her, tongue circling her hole, and she was <em>impatient</em>. She buried her hands in Sylvain’s hair just as Sylvain’s was buried in Felix’s, rutting against his face, moving with such enthusiasm and such little grace that her swollen clit was rubbing against his nose.</p>
<p>Sylvain took it in stride, trying to focus on thrusting his tongue into her while she ground down on his face. Aside from the fact that he was <em>good</em> at eating pussy— it had always been his favourite thing to do with the women he dated, since he couldn’t chance anything that might get them pregnant— he was also enjoying himself by casually groping her ass. She was so small that one cheek fit nicely into his free hand, and he pawed and squeezed at her while he tried to focus on breathing through his nose.</p>
<p>Felix was focused entirely on the task at hand— what he lacked in experience he made up for in determination and enthusiasm, relaxing his jaw and throat to try and take as much of Sylvain in as possible. Sylvain’s hand in his hair was exactly the motivation he needed, and the way Sylvain’s fingers clenched and tugged at his hair when he was doing an especially good job made him want to <em>keep doing good</em>.</p>
<p>But when he heard Lysithea’s high-pitched whines he couldn’t help but look up, and his mouth went immediately dry at the sight of his wife practically humping his best friend’s face while he groped her ass and moaned into her cunt like he was having the time of his life. He lifted off Sylvain’s cock because he absolutely could not focus on what he was doing with <em>that</em> sight in front of him.</p>
<p>Lysithea was panting and whining, a sure sign she was close to cumming, her legs starting to tremble where they were clamped around Sylvain’s head. Sylvain seemed to understand that she was close and redoubled his efforts, both of his hands coming to sit on her hips as he guided her more, moving between tongue fucking her and sucking on her clit.</p>
<p>When Lysithea came it was with an aborted cry, her voice cutting out almost immediately and her mouth wide open in a wordless scream. She tightened her fingers in Sylvain’s hair so hard he thought she was going to rip it out, but he couldn’t even bring himself to care.</p>
<p>It felt like her orgasm went on <em>forever</em>, her cunt gushing and soaking Sylvain’s entire face, her legs trembling so hard she could barely stay up. By the time she was over the peak and was starting to come back to herself, her vision had started going blurry at the edges and her legs were quivering.</p>
<p>Sylvain used his grip on her hips to gently guide her off of him, laying her down on the bed and watching her small but lovely breasts heaving as she tried to catch her breath.</p>
<p>He had been so focused on what he was doing that he had barely noticed that Felix had stopped sucking him off until he heard a breathy, “...<em>Fuck.” </em>from between his legs.</p>
<p>Felix stared at the two of them, pupils blown wide. No one had even touched him yet, but he was harder than he had ever been and he was dripping so much he had started to soak the bedding.</p>
<p>Lysithea’s cunt was dripping and she was shaking all over, still recovering from the aftershocks of her orgasm; the entire lower half of Sylvain’s face was soaked, and he licked his lips like he was savouring a delicious meal.</p>
<p>“So,” Sylvain said, voice light and filled with a newfound energy; this was all new to him, but the motions were as familiar as ever. “Who’s up for round two?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Fuck, </em>Sylvain.”</p>
<p>“That’s the plan.”</p>
<p>“Shut— ah!”</p>
<p>Sylvain smirked as Felix wasn’t even able to finish telling him to shut up, thanks to the little bundle of nerves he was able to find and massage unrelentingly with the pad of his finger.</p>
<p>Felix looked back over his shoulder, intending to glare at him, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from rolling part way back into his head when Sylvain crooked the finger inside him <em>just right</em> and made stars start appearing behind his eyes again.</p>
<p>For someone who <em>said</em> he had never done this before, Sylvain was pretty damn good at it.</p>
<p>Felix was on his hands and knees with Sylvain crouched behind him, and Lysithea was under him, her legs hooked loosely around his waist. She admired the overwhelmed look on Felix’s face, the way he had turned completely red, his little panting breaths as he tried to hold back the noises that would tell Sylvain <em>exactly</em> how good he was making him feel.</p>
<p>She would have to keep all this in mind for her own reference. In the meantime, she reached up to brush Felix’s hair back out of his face, then cupped his jaw in her hands so she could pull him down into a deep, sloppy kiss.</p>
<p>“Ready for another?” Sylvain leaned across Felix’s back, talking directly into his ear— and giving the shell of it a nibble, just for good measure.</p>
<p>“Just <em>do it already</em>,” Felix hissed at him as soon as he could free his lips from Lysithea, who immediately pulled him in for another passionate kiss.</p>
<p>That was enough of a go ahead for Sylvain, who pulled his finger out— Felix cutting himself off in the middle of a wounded noise at the sudden loss— so he could pour a generous amount of oil onto <em>two </em>fingers, dribbling the rest over Felix’s asshole before sinking both fingers back in.</p>
<p>Felix moaned into Lysithea’s mouth as Sylvain started stretching him, scissoring his fingers and fingering him at such a <em>slow and steady</em> pace that it was going to drive him <em>insane</em>.</p>
<p>Lysithea knew just what kind of distraction he needed, though; one of her hands went around to cup the back of his neck and keep him in place, while the other slipped between their bodies to tweak a nipple, making him almost <em>yelp</em> against her lips as Sylvain chose that exact moment to bury both fingers into him and scissor them as far as he could in one swift motion.</p>
<p>Feeling sort of like he was just along for the ride between the three of them, Felix felt the need to take back <em>some</em> control, and still holding himself up by one hand slipped the other between himself and Lysithea so he could run his fingers along her wet cunt.</p>
<p>Lysithea let out a sigh and a full-bodied shiver, trying not to squirm away; they’d had a bit of a break before <em>round two</em> as Sylvain had called it, letting them hydrate and check on Evangeline and giving Lysithea a chance to brew and drink her contraceptive tea, but she still felt swollen and oversensitive.</p>
<p>She whimpered, not unpleasantly, when slid a finger into her. He kept up the same leisurely pace Sylvain was using on him, introducing a second finger and crooking them both just right to find all of her sweet spots with ease of practice.</p>
<p>Eventually Sylvain pulled out his two fingers and returned with three without another word, making Felix gasp for breath at how <em>full</em> he felt— and he knew that wasn’t even the half of it. He’d struggled to get Sylvain into his mouth; he had no idea how something that big was going inside of him, but he also knew if he had to wait a minute longer for it someone was going to die.</p>
<p>Of course, Sylvain knew better than to rush things; he gave Felix a few more pumps of his three fingers before pulling out completely, backing up to pour more oil into his hand to slick up his length.</p>
<p>“I think it might work better if you two gets yourselves <em>situated</em> first,” he suggested, resisting the urge to just keep touching himself at the tantalizing sight in front of him— Lysithea’s legs locked around Felix’s slender waist, both of them looking at him with drooping, sex-hungry eyes, faces flushed.</p>
<p>He hadn’t cum yet, and he had no idea how long he was going to last, but he definitely wasn’t going to let himself get off before the best part even <em>began</em>.</p>
<p>Felix nodded, even though what he <em>really</em> wanted to do was curse Sylvain out and tell him to <em>fuck him</em> already— figuring he probably knew what he was talking about, though, he instead sat up and unhooked Lysithea’s legs from around him just enough that he could slide his fingers out of her and instead position the head of his cock at her hole.</p>
<p>He would have asked if she was ready, but judging by the way she was rutting against him to try to get him to <em>move</em>, he was pretty sure he already had his answer.</p>
<p>As he pushed into her he was almost immediately overwhelmed by how <em>wet</em> and <em>soft</em> and <em>hot</em> she was inside. He was no stammering virgin, but this— this was something new and different, especially with the way Lysithea was practically <em>clawing</em> at his back. He couldn’t remember a time when she had been so desperate.</p>
<p>He would have been insulted, except for the fact that he felt exactly the same, and had to stop when he was fully sheathed in her to avoid cumming immediately.</p>
<p>Sylvain paused to admire Felix from behind— seeing the flush all over his body, watching the way he was subtly trembling from the effort of holding himself back, and running his hand over the curve of his spine.</p>
<p>“Sylvain, if you don’t hurry up and fuck me—”</p>
<p>“Alright, alright. Impatient…”</p>
<p>As though he had any room to speak, when just <em>looking </em>at the two of them was enough to make his dick twitch and leak, and he had to start thinking unsexy thoughts as soon as his hands came down on Felix’s hips to line himself up so he wouldn’t cum <em>immediately</em>.</p>
<p>Though he had a feeling all three of them weren’t going to last long— he just wanted to make it as good as possible before that point.</p>
<p>He was trying to hold on to the thought of being lectured by his father— possibly the <em>least</em> sexy thing he could imagine— as the head of his cock breached Felix’s tight hole, but as soon as he got past that initial point of resistance with a slick <em>pop</em>, his entire mind went blank.</p>
<p>Now he <em>knew</em> he wasn’t going to last very long— Felix was just <em>too tight</em>.</p>
<p>Felix couldn’t keep himself upright; as soon as Sylvain was inside it was like his arms lost all of their strength and he had to rely on his elbows to keep him from landing on top of Lysithea completely. If she cared that he was now half squishing her, she certainly didn’t show it; she simply smirked at him knowingly.</p>
<p>“Feeling good?” she asked, and before he could figure out if that was a real question or not, she lifted her hips so she could hook her legs back around his waist and tightened around him.</p>
<p>Since Sylvain chose that exact moment to slide in a few more inches, all of Felix’s breath shot out of his lungs.</p>
<p>Sylvain moaned low and long, bending over Felix with his hands coming down next to his and Lysithea’s heads. He started mouthing at Felix’s neck, returning the favour for all the bruises and bites he’d been giving him earlier.</p>
<p>“Fuck, Felix… You feel so good…”</p>
<p>He was panting right in Felix’s ear, and Felix let out a high-pitched noise and a full-bodied shudder at the feeling of his hot breath on the shell of his ear.</p>
<p>“Sh-shut up…” At least, that was what Felix <em>tried</em> to say, but his voice came out slurred with pleasure and tripping over his words.</p>
<p>“He’s right, though…”</p>
<p>Lysithea bit her bottom lip to try and hold back a mischievous grin, feeling the heat of Sylvain’s body pressed against her feet and calves where they were wrapped around Felix, rolling her hips to encourage Felix— who was almost insensate in his pleasure— to start moving.</p>
<p>Of course, he didn’t have much of a choice when Sylvain started moving— when Sylvain pulled almost all the way out and thrust halfway back in in one smooth motion, his own hips snapped forward by reflex, sheathing him all the way in Lysithea; when Sylvain pulled back out once more, Felix instinctually tried to follow him, and the pattern repeated.</p>
<p>It almost felt like she was being fucked by Felix and Sylvain at the same time— a fun thought, and definitely something to keep in mind for later… But the sight of Felix totally overwhelmed being sandwiched between the two of them was more than enough for now.</p>
<p>“You’re so <em>tight</em>,” Sylvain panted, right into Felix’s ear again. He lifted himself up enough that he could put his hands on Felix’s hips to give himself more leverage to try to work the rest of his cock in— Felix was hot and slick inside, and Sylvain had been so generous with the oil that it was dripping out of him and making obscene squelching noises every time he thrust in, but even then it was like a vice grip on his cock. It was just on the right side of pain… </p>
<p>Felix didn’t even have the wherewithal left to tell him to shut up, or to respond in any way other than letting out another shaky moan— even remembering to <em>breathe</em> was becoming difficult. He was so desperate to cum, between the tight grip of Lysithea’s pussy on his cock and the heavy heat of Sylvain’s cock inside of him. The assault from both sides was absolutely demolishing his ability to think about anything other than how much he needed to get off…</p>
<p>Felix’s mouth fell open, his tongue sticking out as he panted like a dog in heat. Lysithea thought it was a good look on him, but more than just admiring the scenery, she was starting to feel that warm heat building in her cunt for the second time, making her grind her hips up as Felix fucked her at the same pelvis-bruising pace Sylvain had adopted in his own desperation.</p>
<p>She couldn’t resist the urge to lean up and take Felix’s tongue into her mouth and suck on it at the exact moment that Sylvain gave one powerful thrust that finally managed to sheath him entirely in Felix— and that was apparently exactly what was needed to push him over the edge.</p>
<p>Felix let out a high-pitched wail, so overwhelmed by pleasure from both sides that it almost sounded like he was in pain. His hips stuttered, but between Sylvain’s breakneck thrusting and Lysithea’s desperate grinding, he couldn’t stop— he kept fucking Lysithea and fucking himself back against Sylvain through his orgasm, filling Lysithea with hot cum that never seemed to stop. It was the hardest he had ever cum in his <em>life</em>.</p>
<p>Lysithea whined when Felix tried to pull out, clamping her legs tighter around him which made <em>him</em> whine from the overstimulation— but she was <em>so close</em>, she just needed that last little push—</p>
<p>Which came in the form of Sylvain thrusting so hard into Felix it pushed them all up the bed as he cried out in his own orgasm, making Felix whimper at the feeling of being filled with cum, as Lysithea clenched around his cock and shuddered through her own orgasm that hit her so hard she couldn’t even <em>make</em> any noise as she arched off the bed.</p>
<p>For a long moment, everything was silent except for heaving breaths, everyone floating in a haze of post-coital bliss and afraid to move in case they shattered the momentary peace—</p>
<p>And then the piercing sound of Evangeline crying snapped them out of it and brought them all back to reality.</p>
<p>Lysithea instinctively went to get up, but since Felix was still half lying on top of her she had to squirm to try and get out of the tangle of bodies and limbs— and since he was still <em>inside</em> of her, they both winced at the sensitivity as his softening cock slipped out of her. Sylvain tried to help by looping his arms around Felix to sort of half lift him off of her, but he made the mistake of <em>not</em> pulling out of him first, and they both groaned at the oversensitivity of his cock moving around inside of Felix so soon after they had both cum.</p>
<p>Still, with <em>some</em> difficulty, Lysithea managed to escape the bed, get up on legs that were so shaky she wasn’t even sure she would make it to the door nevermind down the hall, pausing only to throw her robe on.</p>
<p>Sylvain finally pulled out of Felix— admittedly with some reluctance— and let himself fall onto the bed, chest heaving as he tried to regain his breath. Felix quickly joined him, casually laying his head on Sylvain’s shoulder and letting out a deep, full bodied sigh.</p>
<p>“So…”</p>
<p>He knew it was something they were going to have to talk about, but Felix just let out a disgruntled noise and turned his head to bury it in Sylvain’s shoulder.</p>
<p>“Just shut up for once, Sylvain,” he muttered, barely able to be understood with the way he was talking <em>into</em> him.</p>
<p>Still, he obliged, figuring it could at least wait until morning when they were all less exhausted and sex drunk.</p>
<p>Lysithea didn’t take too long to rejoin them, already untying the sash of her robe as she stepped back into the room, tossing it somewhere to be dealt with in the morning as she crawled into bed on Felix’s other side. It was a tight squeeze, trying to fit three adults into the same bed, but they managed— probably because Lysithea was so tiny. She fit perfectly curled up against Felix’s back with her arms looped around his waist, nuzzling against him.</p>
<p>“Guess we were a little too loud, huh?” Sylvain joked.</p>
<p>Lysithea just made a <em>noise</em> in response, which, fair enough.</p>
<p>“We should probably clean up before we fall asleep,” he added, figuring he was somehow the most coherent one in the room at the moment. “It won’t be fun to wake up a sticky mess.”</p>
<p>Both Lysithea and Felix just made more noises at him.</p>
<p>Sylvain decided that meant he was being elected as official cleaner-upper, so he got out of bed, retrieved some damp cloths from the bathroom next door, and came back to start wiping everyone down.</p>
<p>It wasn’t a perfect solution, but at least they would all wake up way less sticky and uncomfortable than they would otherwise.</p>
<p>Lysithea whined as he moved her about to clean her up, and Felix just glared at him from where his head was folded in his arms, but when he climbed back into bed after bringing the cloths back to the washroom they still both immediately snuggled up to him again.</p>
<p>“Well,” he said, feeling just as exhausted as they both looked but still buzzing with the adrenaline of the fact that <em>that had just happened</em> and unable to bring himself to just roll over and fall asleep. “Happy birthday to me, I guess.”</p>
<p>Felix shot up in bed, immediately regretting it when everything started hurting <em>and</em> he nearly knocked Lysithea off the bed.</p>
<p>“Is <em>that</em> why you showed up here? Because it’s almost your birthday?”</p>
<p>“I mean, not <em>entirely</em>. But it sort of worked out that way, didn’t it? You’re a pretty great birthday present, Felix.”</p>
<p>Felix muttered curses under his breath as he flushed, saying, “<em>Damn it, </em>Sylvain…”</p>
<p>“You know, you two should come home with me. Just for a visit,” he quickly clarified. “We’re having a party for my birthday where we’re going to tell everyone Ingrid is pregnant. Lots of people are going to be there! Mercedes… Annette… Bernadetta…”</p>
<p>“...Damn it, Sylvain.” Felix growled. “Go to sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”</p>
<p>Which meant that the answer was yes, he just didn’t want to admit defeat so easily. Lysithea even winked at him over Felix’s shoulder as they all settled back down, and <em>now</em> Sylvain felt the heavy blanket of a good post-sex sleep settling over him.</p>
<p>It really was shaping up to be a happy birthday.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Are you sure you can manage everything while we’re gone?”</p>
<p>“Of course, darling; you just enjoy yourself.”</p>
<p>Lysithea gave her mother a long hug as Felix finished loading their belongings into the saddle bags of their horses. Evangeline gurgled happily from where she was strapped tightly to his chest, and he paused in his work just long enough to reach into the sling and tickle her under her chin, making her giggle.</p>
<p>“I’ll write to you as soon as we get there,” Lysithea said, figuring Ingrid wouldn’t mind if she borrowed one of Galatea territory’s pegasus couriers.</p>
<p>She still felt strange leaving her parents behind to watch their house and animals while they were gone, but she knew their visit wouldn’t be a long one— Felix might have agreed to go back to the former Kingdom to see everyone for Sylvain’s birthday, but she was sure that even with everything that had happened in the past few days, he wouldn’t really feel any more comfortable there than she would feel going back to <em>her</em> old home.</p>
<p>Sylvain, already packed and ready to go, came up leading his own horse by her own halter, stroking her snout gently and feeding her the last bit of a carrot.</p>
<p>“Are we ready to head out?” He gave Lysithea’s mother a respectful nod, but he obviously cared more about getting on the road than he did about sticking to typical noble formalities.</p>
<p>“Just about,” Felix said, double and triple checking their belongings, the saddle bags, and the tack for their horses.</p>
<p>Lysithea hadn’t been on a long journey on horseback since the war had ended— even coming to Freywallow she and her parents had come by chartered carriage.</p>
<p>She wasn’t sure she was looking forward to it, but since it was for the sake of seeing a bunch of their old friends, she supposed she could put up with it.</p>
<p>“Well then.” Sylvain clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “We’re wasting daylight. Let’s get out of here, shall we?”</p>
<p>Lysithea gave her mother one last squeeze and peck on the cheek before walking over to her horse, letting Sylvain give her a quick boost up— he offered the same to Felix but he just rolled his eyes and effortlessly swung himself onto the back of his horse without any help.</p>
<p>“I might not be as obsessed with horses as you and Ingrid, Sylvain, but I still remember how to ride one.”</p>
<p>“Just trying to help,” Sylvain said, but he was still smiling as he mounted his own horse and maneuvered her onto the road. Felix and his horse followed, and Lysithea took up the rear.</p>
<p>It was going to be a long trip.</p>
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